The  War  b 

r    j  i 

ot  the 

Germ  a 

General  S 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Perifrord 


/ 


THE    WAR   BOOK    OF    THE 
GERMAN  GENERAL  STAFF 


THE  WAR  BOOK  OF  THE 
GERMAN  GENERAL  STAFF 

BEING  "THE  USAGES  OF  WAR  ON  LAND" 

ISSUED     BY    THE    GREAT     GENERAL 

STAFF  OF  THE  GERMAN  ARMY 


TRANSLATED  WITH  A  CRITICAL  INTRODUCTION 
BY 

J.  H.  MORGAN,  M.A. 

PROFESSOR  OF  CONSTITUTIONAL  LAW  AT  UNIVERSITY 

COLLEGE,  LONDON,  LATE  SCHOLAR  OF  BALLIOL 

COLLEGE,   OXFORD;   JOINT  AUTHOR  OF 

"  WAR :  ITS  CONDUCT  AND  ITS 

LEGAL  RESULTS  " 


NEW  YORK 

McBRIDE,  NAST  &  COMPANY 
1915 


Copyright,    1915,    by 
,  NAST  &  Co. 


Published  March,  1915 


-15Y& 


TO 
THE  LORD  FITZMAURICE 

IN  TOKEN  OF 
FOURTEEN  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP 

AND  OF 

MUCH  WISE  COUNSEL  IN  THE  STUDY 
OF  FOREIGN  AFFAIRS 


630180 


THE  text  of  this  book  is  a  literal  and  integral  trans- 
lation of  the  Kriegsbranch  im  Landkriege  issued  and 
re-issued  by  the  German  General  Staff  for  the  in- 
struction of  German  officers.  It  is  the  most  au- 
thoritative work  of  its  kind  in  Germany  and  takes 
precedence  over  all  other  publications  whether  mili- 
tary or  legal,  alike  over  the  works  of  Bernhardi  the 
soldier  and  of  Holtzendorff  the  jurist.  As  will  be 
shown  in  detail  in  the  critical  introduction,  The 
Hague  Conventions  are  treated  by  the  authors  as 
little  more  than  "  scraps  of  paper " —  the  only 
"  laws  "  recognized  by  the  German  Staff  are  the  mili- 
tary usages  laid  down  in  the  pages  of  the  Manual, 
and  resting  upon  "  a  calculating  egotism  "  and  in- 
judicious "  form  of  reprisals." 

I  have  treated  the  original  text  with  religious  re- 
spect, seeking  neither  to  extenuate  nor  to  set  down 
aught  in  malice.  The  text  is  by  no  means  elegant, 
but,  having  regard  to  the  profound  significance  of  the 
views  therein  expressed  or  suggested,  I  have  thought 
it  my  duty  as  a  translator  to  sacrifice  grace  to  fidelity. 
Text,  footnotes,  and  capital  headlines  are  all  literally 
translated  in  their  entirety.  When  I  have  added 


Prefatory  Note 

footnotes  of  my  own  they  are  enclosed  in  square 
brackets.  The  marginal  notes  have  been  added  in 
order  to  supply  the  reader  with  a  continuous  clue. 
In  the  Critical  Introduction  which  precedes  the  text 
I  have  attempted  to  show  the  intellectual  pedigree  of 
the  book  as  the  true  child  of  the  Prussian  military 
tradition,  and  to  exhibit  its  degrees  of  affinity  with 
German  morals  and  with  German  policy  —  with 
"Politik"  and  "  Kultur."  I  have  therefore  at- 
tempted a  short  study  of  German  diplomacy,  politics, 
and  academic  teaching  since  1870,  with  some  side 
glances  at  the  writings  of  German  soldiers  and  jurists. 
All  these,  it  must  be  remembered,  are  integrally  re- 
lated; they  all  envisage  the  same  problem.  That 
problem  is  War.  In  the  German  imagination  the 
Temple  of  Janus  is  never  closed.  Peace  is  but  a 
suspension  of  the  state  of  war  instead  of  war  being 
a  rude  interruption  of  a  state  of  peace.  The  tem- 
perament of  the  German  is  saturated  with  this  bel- 
ligerent emotion  and  every  one  who  is  not  with  him 
is  against  him.  An  unbroken  chain  links  together 
Clausewitz,  Bismarck,  Treitschke,  von  der  Goltz, 
Bernhardi,  and  the  official  exponents  of  German 
policy  to-day.  The  teaching  of  Clausewitz  that  war 
is  a  continuation  of  policy  has  sunk  deeply  into  the 
German  mind,  with  the  result  that  their  conception 
of  foreign  policy  is  to  provoke  a  constant  apprehen- 
sion of  war. 


Prefatory  Note 

The  first  part  of  the  Introduction  appears  in  print 
for  the  first  time.  In  the  second  and  third  parts  I 
have  incorporated  a  short  essay  on  Treitschke  which 
has  appeared  in  the  pages  of  the  Nineteenth  Century 
(in  October  last),  a  criticism  of  German  diplomacy 
and  politics  which  was  originally  contributed  to  the 
Spectator  in  1906  and  a  study  of  the  German  pro- 
fessors which  was  published,  under  the  title  of  "  The 
Academic  Garrison,"  in  the  Times  Supplement  of 
Sept.  1st,  1914.  I  desire  to  thank  the  respective 
Editors  for  their  kindness  in  allowing  me  to  repro- 
duce here  what  I  had  already  written  there. 

J.  H.  M. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

DEDICATION v 

PREFATORY  NOTE vii 

INTRODUCTION  - 

I     THE  GERMAN  VIEW  OF  WAR     .      .      .      .      .  1 

II     GERMAN  DIPLOMACY  AND   STATECRAFT      .  16 

III  GERMAN  CULTURE:   THE  ACADEMIC  GARRI- 

SON         44 

IV  GERMAN  THOUGHT:  TREITSCHKE   ....     53 

V  CONCLUSION 65 

CONTENTS  OF  THE  WAR  BOOK  OF  THE  GER- 
MAN GENERAL  STAFF  — 

INTRODUCTION 67 

PART  I 
USAGES  OF  WAR  AS  REGARDS  THE  ENEMY'S  ARMY 

I     WHO  BELONGS  TO  THE  HOSTILE  ARMY  .      .     75 

Regular  Army  —  Irregular  Troops  —  People's 
Wars  and  National  Wars. 

II    THE  MEANS  OF  CONDUCTING  WAR   ...     84 

A. —  MEANS  OP  WAR  DEPENDING  ON  FORCE   ....       85 

1.  Annihilation,   slaughter,   and  wounding  of  hos- 
tile combatants. 

2.  Capture  of  Enemy  combatants: 

Modern  conception  of  war  captivity  —  Who  is 
subject  to  it  ?  —  Point  of  view  for  treatment  of 
prisoners  of  war  —  Right  to  put  prisoners  to 
death  —  Termination  of  the  captivity  —  Trans- 
port of  Prisoners. 

xi 


xii  Contents 

PAGE 

3.  Sieges  and  Bombardments: 

(a)  Fortresses,  strong  places  and  fortified 
places.  Notification  of  bombardment  —  Scope  of 
bombardment  —  Treatment  of  civil  population 
within  an  enemy's  fortress  —  Diplomatists  of 
neutral  States  within  a  besieged  fortress  — 
Treatment  of  the  fortress  after  storming  it.  (6) 
Open  towns,  villages,  buildings  and  the  like, 
which,  however,  are  occupied  or  used  for  mili- 
tary purposes. 

B. —  METHODS    NOT   INVOLVING    THE    USE    OF    FORCE    .     110 

Cunning  and  deceit  —  Lawful  and  unlawful 
stratagem. 

Ill     TREATMENT  OF  WOUNDED  AND  SICK  SOL- 
DIERS         87 

Modern    view    of    non-effective    combatants  — 
Geneva  Convention  —  Hyenas  of  the  battlefield. 
IV     INTERCOURSE  BETWEEN  BELLIGERENT  AR- 
MIES   117 

Bearers  of  flags  of  truce  —  Treatment  of  them 
—  Forms  as  to  their  reception. 

V     SCOUTS  AND  SPIES 124 

The  notion  of  a  spy  —  Treatment. 

VI    DESERTERS   AND   RENEGADES      .      .      .      .127 
VII     CIVILIANS  IN  THE  TRAIN  OF  AN  ARMY     .    128 

General  —  Authorizations  —  The  representa- 
tives of  the  Press. 

VIII     THE  EXTERNAL  MARK  OF  INVIOLABILITY  133 
IX     WAR   TREATIES „    .      .    135 

A. —  TREATIES    OF    EXCHANGE 135 

B. —  TBEATTES    OF    CAPITULATION 136 

C. —  SAFE-CONDUCTS 140 

D. —  TREATIES    OF    ABMISTICE 141 

PART  II 

USAGES  OF  WAR  IN  REGARD  TO  ENEMY  TERRITORY 
AND  ITS  INHABITANTS 

I     RIGHTS  AND  DUTIES  OF  THE  INHABITANTS  .    147 
General    Notions  —  Rights  —  Duties  —  Hostages 


Contents  xiii 

PAGE 

—  Jurisdiction   in   enemy's   provinces  when   occu- 
pied —  War  rebellion  and  War  treason. 
II     PRIVATE  PROPEETY  IN  WAR 161 

III  BOOTY   AND   PLUNDERING 167 

Real  and  Personal  State  Property  —  Real  and 
Personal  Private  Property. 

IV  REQUISITIONS  AND  WAR  LEVIES    ....    174 
V    ADMINISTRATION  OF  OCCUPIED  TERRITORY  180 

General  —  Legislation  —  Relation  of  inhabitants 
to  the  Provisional  Government  —  Courts  —  Offi- 
cials —  Administration  —  Railways. 

PART  III 

USAGES  OF  WAR  AS  REGARDS  NEUTRAL  STATES  .    187 

Idea  of  neutrality  —  Duties  of  neutral  States  — 
Contraband  of  war  —  Rights  of  neutral  States. 


CONTENTS 
OF  EDITOR'S  MARGINAL  COMMENTARY 


PAGE 

What  is  a  State  of  War.  ...  67 

Active   Persons   and   Passive.  67 
That  War  is  no  respecter  of 

Persons     68 

The  Usages  of  War 69 

Of     the    futility     of     Written 
Agreements    as    Scraps    of 

Paper    70 

The      "  flabby     emotion "      of 

Humanitarianism     71 

That    Cruelty    is    often    "  the 

truest  humanity "    72 

The  perfect  Officer    72 

Who  are  Combatants  and  who 

are    not     75 

The  Irregular 76 

Each  State  must  decide  for  it- 
self      77 

The  necessity  of  Authorization  77 
Exceptions    which    prove    the 

rule   77 

The  Free   Lance    78 

Modern   views    79 

The  German  Military  View .  .  80 

The  Lev6e  en  masse    81 

The    Hague    Regulations    will 

not   do    83 

A    short    way    with    the    De- 
fender of  his  Country ....  83 

Violence  and  Cunning    84 

How  fo  make   an  end  of  the 

Enemy     85 

The  Rules  of  the  Game 85 

Colored     Troops     are     Black- 
legs       87 

Prisoners  of  War    88 

Va>  Victis ! 89 

The  Modern  View 39 

Prisoners   of   War    are   to   be 

Honorably    treated    90 

Who  may  be  made  Prisoners  91 
The  treatment  of  Prisoners  of 

War     92 

Their  confinement   92 

The    Prisoner    and    his   Task- 
master       93 


PAGE 

Flight    94 

Diet     95 

Letters    95 

Personal   belongings    95 

The  Information  Bureau.  ...      96 
When    Prisoners   may    be   put 

to    Death    97 

"  Reprisals "     97 

One  must  not  be  too  scrupu- 
lous         98 

The  end  of  Captivity    99 

Parole     100 

Exchange  of  Prisoners 102 

Removal  of  Prisoners 102 

Sieges     and     Bombardments : 

Fair    Game    103 

Of  making  the  most  of  one's 

opportunity     104 

Spare  the  Churches    105 

A    Bombardment    is    no    Re- 

spector   of   Persons    105 

A   timely   severity    106 

"  Undefended   Places  "    108 

Stratagems    110 

What  are  "dirty  tricks"  ?..    Ill 
The    apophthegm    of    Freder- 
ick the  Great Ill 

Of  False  Uniforms    112 

The  Corruption  of  others  may 

be  useful    113 

And    Murder    is    one    of    the 

Fine  Art* 114 

That  the  ugly  is  often  expedi- 
ent, and  that  it  is  a  mistake 
to  be  too  "  nice-minded  "  .  .    114 
The    Sanctity    of    the    Geneva 

Convention    115 

The    "  Hyenas    of   the   Battle- 
field "    116 

Flags  of  Truce    117 

The    Etiquette    of     Flags     of 

Truce    119 

The  Envoy    120 

His  approach 120 

The   Challenge  — "  Wer  da  1  "   120 
His    reception    120 


Contents  to  Marginal  Notes 


xv 


PAGE 

He   dismounts    121 

Let  his  Yea  be  Yea,   and  his 

Nay,  Nay    121 

The  duty  of  his  Interlocutor.  .  121 

The  Impatient  Envoy 122 

The  French  again   122 

The   Scout    124 

The  Spy  and  his  short  shrift  124 

What  is  a  Spy  ?    125 

Of  the  essentials  of  Espionage  126 

Accessories  are  Principals.  .  .  126 
The  Deserter  is  faithless,  and 

the  Renegade  false    127 

But  both  may  be  useful.  .  .  .  127 

"  Followers  "    128 

The  War   Correspondent:   his 
importance.      His    presence 

is   desirable    129 

The  ideal  War  Correspondent  130 
The  Etiquette  of  the  War  Cor- 
respondent      131 

How  to  tell  a  Non-Combatant  133 

War  Treaties   135 

That  Faith  must  be  kept  even 

with  an  enemy 135 

Exchange    of    Prisoners 135 

Capitulations  —  they      cannot 

be  too  meticulous    136 

Of  the  White  Flag    139 

Of    Safe-Conducts    140 

Of   Armistices    141 

The  Civil  Population  is  not  to 

be  regarded  as  an  enemy.  .  147 

They  must  not  be  molested.  .  148 

Their  duty   149 

Of  the  humanity  of  the  Ger- 
mans and  the  barbarity  of 

the  French 149 

What  the  Invader  may  do.  .  151 
A   man   may   be   compelled   to 

Betray  his  Country 153 

And  worse   153 

Of  forced  labor    154 

Of    a   certain    harsh    measure 

and  its  justification 154 

Hostages 155 

A    "  harsh   and  cruel  "   meas- 
ure      156 

But   it   was   "successful"...  156 

War  Rebellion    157 

War   Treason    and    Unwilling 

Guides     159 

Another  deplorable  necessity.  159 
Of    Private    Property   and   its 

immunities    161 

Of  German  behavior 163 

The  gentle  Hun  and  the  look- 
ing-glass      165 

Booty    167 

The  State  realty  may  be  used 

but  must  not  be  wasted.  .  168 


PAGE 
State     Personalty,    is     at    the 

mercy  of  the  victor 169 

Private  realty    170 

Private    personalty    170 

"  Choses  in  action  "    171 

Plundering    is    wicked    171 

Requisitions     174 

How  the  docile  German  learnt 

the   "  better   way "    175 

To  exhaust  the  country  is  de- 
plorable, but  we  mean  to 

do  it 175 

Buccaneering   levies    177 

How  to  administer  an  invaded 

country     180 

The       Laws       remain  —  with 

qualification    181 

The  Inhabitants  must  obey.  .    182 

Martial    Law    182 

Fiscal   Policy    184 

Occupation  must  be  real,   not 

fictitious    135 

What  neutrality  means 187 

A  neutral  cannot  be  all  things 
to  all  men;  therefore  he 
must  be  nothing  to  any  of 

them     187 

But   there   are   limits   to   this 

detachment     188 

Duties  of  the  neutral  —  bel- 
ligerents must  be  warned 

off    188 

The  neutral  must  guard  its 
inviolable  frontiers.  It 
must  intern  the  trespass- 
ers    189 

Unneutral  service    191 

The      "  sinews     of     war " — 

loans  to  belligerents    191 

Contraband  of  War 191 

Good  business    192 

Foodstuffs     192 

Contraband  on   a   small  scale  193 

And  on  a  large  scale 194 

The   practise   differs    194 

Who    may    pass  —  the     Sick 

and  the  Wounded 195 

Who  may  not  pass  —  Pris- 
oners of  War 196 

Rights  of  the  neutral 196 

The  neutral  has  the  right  to 

be  left  alone    197 

Neutral  territory  is  sacred   .  .    197 
The  neutral  may  resist  a  vio- 
lation      of       its      territory 
"  with  all  the  means  in  his 

power "     197 

Neutrality  is  presumed 198 

The   Property  of  Neutrals.  .  .    198 
Diplomatic  intercourse    199 


THE  WAR  BOOK  OF  THE 
GERMAN  GENERAL  STAFF 

INTRODUCTION 
CHAPTER  I 

THE    GERMAN"   VIEW    OF    WAS, 

THEI  ideal  Prince,  so  Machiavelli  has  told  us,  need 
not,  and  indeed  should  not,  possess  virtuous  qualities, 
but  he  should  always  contrive  to  appear  to  possess 
them.1  The  somber  Florentine  has  been  studied 
in  Germany  as  he  has  been  studied  nowhere 
else  and  a  double  portion  of  his  spirit  has  de- 
scended on  the  authors  of  this  book.  Herein  the 
perfect  officer,  like  the  perfect  Prince,  is  taught  that 
it  is  more  important  to  be  thought  humane  than  to 
practise  humanity ;  the  former  may  probably  be  use- 
ful but  the  latter  is  certainly  inconvenient. 

Hence  the  peculiar  logic  of  this  book  which  con- 
sists for  the  most  part  in  ostentatiously  laying  down 
unimpeachable  rules  and  then  quietly  destroying 
them  by  debilitating  exceptions.  The  civil  popula- 
tion of  an  invaded  country  —  the  young  officer  is  re- 
minded on  one  page  —  is  to  be  left  undisturbed  in 

i  II  Principe,  cap.  18. 


2       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

mind,  body,  and  estate,  their  honor  is  to  be  inviolate, 
their  lives  protected,  and  their  property  secure.  To 
compel  them  to  assist  the  enemy  is  brutal,  to  make 
them  betray  their  own  country  is  inhuman.  Such  is 
the  general  proposition.  Yet  a  little  while  and  the 
Manual  descends  to  particulars.  Can  the  officer  com- 
pel the  peaceful  inhabitants  to  give  information  about 
the  strength  and  disposition  of  his  country's  forces  ?  2 
Yes,  answers  the  German  War-Book,  it  is  doubtless 
regrettable  but  it  is  often  necessary.  Should  they  be 
exposed  to  the  fire  of  their  own  troops  ? 3  Yes ;  it 
may  be  indefensible,  but  its  "  main  justification  "  is 
that  it  is  "  successful."  Should  the  tribute  of  sup- 
plies levied  upon  them  be  proportioned  to  their  abil- 
ity to  pay  it  ? 4  No ;  "  this  is  all  very  well  in  theory 
but  it  would  rarely  be  observed  in  practise."  Should 
the  forced  labor  of  the  inhabitants  be  limited  to 
works  which  are  not  designed  to  injure  their  own 
country?5  No;  this  is  an  absurd  distinction  and 
impossible.  Should  prisoners  of  war  be  put  to  death  ? 

2  No !  the  Hague  Regulations,  Art.  44 :  "  Any  compulsion  by 
a  belligerent  on  the  population  of  occupied  territory  to  give 
information  as  to  the  army  of  the  other  belligerent,  or  as  to 
his  means  of  defense,  is  prohibited." 

s  No!  the  English  Manual  of  Military  Law,  ch.  xiv,  sec.  463. 

*  Yes !  the  Hague  Regulations,  Art.  52 :  "  They  must  be  in 
proportion  to  the  resources  of  the  country  " ;  and  to  the  same 
effect  the  English  Manual  of  Military  Law,  sec.  416,  and  the 
British  Requisitioning  Instructions. 

5  Yes !  the  Hague  Regulations,  Arts.  23  and  52 ;  also  Actea  et 
Documents  (of  the  Conference),  III,  p.  120. 


The  German  View  of  War  3 

It  is  always  "  ugly  "  but  it  is  sometimes  expedient. 
May  one  hire  an  assassin,  or  corrupt  a  citizen,  or  in- 
cite an  incendiary?  Certainly;  it  may  not  be 
reputable  (anstdndig),  and  honor  may  fight  shy 
of  it,  but  the  law  of  war  is  less  "  touchy "  (em- 
pfindlich).  Should  the  women  and  children  —  the 
old  and  the  feeble  —  be  allowed  to  depart  before  a 
bombardment  begins?  On  the  contrary;  their  pres- 
ence is  greatly  to  be  desired  (ein  Vortheil)  —  it 
makes  the  bombardment  all  the  more  effective. 
Should  the  civil  population  of  a  small  and  defense- 
less country  be  entitled  to  claim  the  right,  provided 
they  carry  their  arms  openly  and  use  them  honorably, 
to  defend  their  native  land  from  the  invader  ? 8 
No;  they  act  at  their  peril  and  must,  however  sud- 
den and,  wanton  the  invasion,  elaborate  an  organiza- 
tion or  they  will  receive  no  quarter.7 

/We  might  multiply  examples.  But  these  are  suf- 
ficient. It  will  be  obvious  that  the  German  Staff 
are  nothing  if  not  casuistSJ  In  their  brutality  they 
are  the  true  descendants  of  Clausewitz,  the  father  of 
Prussian  military  tradition. 

6  Yes !  the  Hague  Regulations,  Art.  2 :     "  The  population  of 
a  territory  which  has  not  been  occupied  who  on  the  approach 
of  the  enemy  spontaneously  take  up  arms  to  resist  th>?  invad- 
ing troops,  without  having  had  time  to  organize  themselves 
in  accordance  with  Article  1,  shall  be  regarded  as  belligerents." 

7  The  whole  of  these  propositions,  revolting  as  they  may 
appear,  are  taken  almost  literally  from  the  text  of  the  War 
Book,  to  which  I  refer  the  reader  for  their  context. 


4       The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

"  Laws  of  war  are  self-imposed  restrictions,  almost 
imperceptible  and  hardly  worth  mentioning,  termed 
*  usages  of  war/  Now  philanthropists  may  easily 
imagine  that  there  is  a  skilful  method  of  disarming 
and  overcoming  an  enemy  without  causing  great  blood- 
shed, and  that  this  is  the  proper  tendency  of  the  art 
of  war.  However  plausible  this  may  appear,  still  it 
is  an  error  which  must  be  extirpated,  for  in  such 
dangerous  things  as  war  the  errors  which  proceed  from 
the  spirit  of  benevolence  are  the  worst.  ...  To  in- 
troduce into  the  philosophy  of  war  itself  a  principle 
of  moderation  would  be  an  absurdity.  .  .  .  War  is 
an  act  of  violence  which  in  its  application  knows  no 
bounds."  8 

The  only  difference  between  Clausewitz  and  his 
lineal  successors  is  not  that  they  are  less  brutal  but 
that  they  are  more  disingenuous.  When  he  comes 
to  discuss  that  form  of  living  on  the  country  which 
is  dignified  by  the  name  of  requisitions,  he  roundly 
says  they  should  be  enforced. 

"by  the  fear  of  responsibility,  punishment,  and  ill 
treatment  which  in  such  cases  presses  like  a  general 
weight  on  the  whole  population.  .  .  .  This  resource 
has  no  limits  except  those  of  the  exhaustion,  impov- 
erishment, and  devastation  of  the  whole  country."  9 

s  Clausewitz :  Vom  Kriege,  I,  Kap.  1  ( 2 ) . 

9  Ibid.  V,  Kap.  14  (3).  Clausewitz's  definition  of  requisi- 
tions is  "  seizing  everything  which  is  to  be  found  in  the  coun- 
try, without  regard  to  meum  and  tuum."  The  German  War 
Book  after  much  prolegomenous  sentiment  arrives  at  the  same 
conclusion  eventually. 


The  German  Vieiff  'of  War  5 

Our  War  Book  is  more  discreet  but  not  more 
merciful.  Private  property,  it  begins  by  saying, 
should  always  be  respected.  To  take  a  man's  prop- 
erty when  he  is  present  is  robbery ;  when  he  is  absent 
it  is  "  downright  burglary."  But  if  the  "  necessity 
of  war "  makes  it  advisable,  "  every  sequestration, 
every  appropriation,  temporary  or  permanent,  every 
use,  every  injury  and  all  destruction  are  permissi- 
ble," 

It  is,  indeed,  unfortunate  that  the  War  Book  when 
it  inculcates  "  frightfulness  "  is  never  obscure,  and 
that  when  it  advises  forbearance  it  is  always  ambigu- 
ous. The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  authors, 
in  common  with  their  kind  in  Germany,  always  en- 
force a  distinction  between  Kriegsmanier  and 
Kriegsraison,10  between  theory  and  practise,  between 
the  rule  and  the  exception.  That  in  extreme  cases 
such  distinctions  may  be  necessary  is  true;  the  mel- 
ancholy thing  is  that  German  writers  make  a  system 
and  indeed  a  virtue  of  them.  In  this  respect  the 
jurists  are  not  appreciably  superior  to  their  soldiers. 
Brutality  is  bad,  but  a  pedantic  brutality  is  worse  in 
proportion  as  it  is  more  reflective.  Holtzendorff's 

10  Kriegsraison  I  have  translated  as  "  the  argument  of  war." 
"  Necessity  of  war  "  is  too  free  a  rendering,  and  when  neces- 
sity is  urged  "  notig  *'  or  "  Notwendigkeit  "  is  the  term  used  in 
the  original.  Kreigsmanier  is  literally  the  "  fashion  of  war  " 
and  means  the  customary  rules  of  which  Kreigsraiaon  makes 
havoc  by  exceptions. 


6       The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

Handbuch  des  Volkerreclits,  than  which  there  is  no 
more  authoritative  book  in  the  legal  literature  of  Ger- 
many, after  pages  of  sanctification  of  "  the  natural 
right  "  to  defend  one's  fatherland  against  invasion  by 
a  levee  en  masse,  terminates  the  argument  for  a  gener- 
ous recognition  of  the  combatant  status  of  the  enemy 
with  the  melancholy  qualification,  "  unless  the  Ter- 
rorism so  often  necessary  in  war  does  not  demand 
the  contrary."  J1 

To  "  terrorize  "  the  civil  population  of  the  enemy 
is,  indeed,  a  first  principle  with  German  writers  on 
the  Art  of  War.  Let  the  reader  ponder  carefully  on 
the  sinister  sentence  in  the  third  paragraph  of  the 
War  Book  and  the  illuminating  footnote  from 
Moltke  with  which  it  is  supported.  The  doctrine  — 
which  is  at  the  foundation  of  all  such  progress  as 
has  been  made  by  international  law  in  regularizing 
and  humanizing  the  conduct  of  war  —  that  the  sole 
object  of  it  should  be  to  disable  the  armed  forces  of 
the  enemy,  finds  no  countenance  here.  No,  say  the 
German  staff,  we  must  seek  just  as  much  (in  gleicher 
Weise)  to  smash  (zerstoreri)  the  total  "  intellectual " 
(geistig),  and  material  resources  of  the  enemy.  It 
is  no  exaggeration  to  interpret  this  as  a  counsel  not 
merely  to  destroy  the  body  of  a  nation,  but  to  ruin 
its  soul.  The  "  Geist "  of  a  people  means  in  Ger- 
man its  very  spirit  and  finer  essence.  It  means  a 

11  Holtzendorff,  TV,  378. 


The  German  View  of  War  7 

good  deal  more  than  intellect  and  but  a  little  less 
than  religion.  The  "  Geist "  of  a  nation  is  "  the 
partnership  in  all  science,  the  partnership  in  all  art, 
the  partnership  in  every  virtue,  and  in  all  perfec- 
tion," which  Burke  defined  as  the  true  conception  of 
the  State.  Hence  it  may  be  no  accident  but  policy 
which  has  caused  the  Germans  in  Belgium  to  stable 
their  horses  in  churches,  to  destroy  municipal  palaces, 
to  defile  the  hearth,  and  bombard  cathedrals.  All 
this  is  scientifically  calculated  "  to  smash  the  total 
spiritual  resources  "  of  a  people,  to  humiliate  them, 
to  stupefy  them,  in  a  word  to  break  their  "  spirit." 
Let  the  reader  also  study  carefully  a  dark  sentence 
in  that  section  of  the  War  Book  which  deals  with 
"  Cunning  and  Deceit."  There  the  German  officer 
is  instructed  that  "  there  is  nothing  in  international 
law  against  "  (steht  volkerrechtlich  nichts  entgegen) 
the  exploitation  of  the  crimes  of  third  persons,  "  such 
as  assassination,  incendiarism,  robbery  and  the  like," 
to  the  disadvantage  of  the  enemy.  "  There  is  noth- 
ing in  international  law  against  it !  "  No,  indeed. 
There  are  many  things  upon  which  international  law 
is  silent  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  refuses  to  con- 
template their  possibility.  It  assumes  that  it  is  deal- 
ing not  with  brutes  but  with  men.  International  law 
is  the  etiquette  of  international  society,  and  society, 
as  it  has  been  gravely  said,  is  conducted  on  the  as- 
sumption that  murder  will  not  be  committed.  We 


8       The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

do  not  carry  revolvers  in  our  pockets  when  we  enter 
our  clubs,  or  finger  them  when  we  shake  hands  with 
a  stranger.  Nor,  to  adopt  a  very  homely  illustra- 
tion, does  any  hostess  think  it  necessary  to  put  up  a 
notice  in  her  drawing-room  that  guests  are  not  al- 
lowed to  spit  upon  the  floor.  But  what  should  we 
think  of  a  man  who  committed  this  disgusting  of- 
fense, and  then  pleaded  that  there  was  nothing  to 
show  that  the  hostess  had  forbidden  it?  Human 
society,  like  political  society,  advances  in  propor- 
tion as  it  rests  on  voluntary  morality  rather  than 
positive  law.  In  primitive  society  everything  is 
"taboo,"  because  the  only  thing  that  will  restrain 
the  undisciplined  passions  of  men  is  fear.  Can  it 
be  that  this  is  why  the  traveler  in  Germany  finds 
everything  "  verboten,"  and  that  things  which  in  our 
own  country  are  left  to  the  good  sense  and  good 
breeding  of  the  citizen  have  to  be  officiously  forbid- 
den? Can  it  be  that  this  people  which  is  always 
making  an  ostentatious  parade  of  its  "  culture "  is 
still  red  in  tooth  and  claw  ?  When  a  man  boasts  his 
breeding  we  instinctively  suspect  it ;  indeed  the  boast 
is  itself  ill-bred.  If  the  reader  thinks  these  reflec- 
tions uncharitable,  let  him  ponder  on  the  treatment 
of  Belgium. 

It  will  be  seen  therefore  that  the  writers  of  the 
War  Book  have  taken  to  heart  the  cynical  maxim  of 
Machiavelli  that  "  a  Prince  should  understand  how 


The  German  View  of  War  9 

to  use  well  both  the  man  and  the  beast."  We  shall 
have  occasion  to  observe  later  in  this  introduction 
that  the  same  maxim  runs  like  Ariadne's  thread 
through  the  labyrinth  of  German  diplomacy. 
Machiavelli's  dark  counsel  finds  a  responsive  echo 
in  Bismarck's  cynical  declaration  that  a  diplomatic 
pretext  can  always  be  found  for  a  war  when  you 
want  one.  When  these  things  are  borne  in  mind 
the  reader  will  be  able  to  understand  how  it  is  that 
the  nation  which  has  used  the  strongest  language 12 
about  the  eternal  inviolability  of  the  neutrality  of 
Belgium  should  be  the  first  to  violate  it. 

The  reader  may  ask,  What  of  the  Hague  Conven- 
tions ?  They  are  international  agreements,  to  which 
Germany  was  a  party,  representing  the  fruition  of 
years  of  patient  endeavor  to  ameliorate  the  horrors 
of  war.  If  they  have  any  defect  it  is  not  that  they 
go  too  far  but  that  they  do  not  go  far  enough.  But 
of  them  and  the  humanitarian  movement  of  which 
they  are  the  expression,  the  German  Staff  has  but  a 
very  poor  opinion.  They  are  for  it  the  crest 
of  a  wave  of  "  Sentimentalism  and  flabby  emo- 
tion." (Sentimentalitat  und  weicheler  Gefulils- 
schwarmerei.}  Such  movements,  our  authors  de- 
clare, are  "  in  fundamental  contradiction  with  the  na- 
ture and  object  of  war  itself."  They  are  rarely  men- 

12  In  Holtzendorff's  Handbuch  des  Volkerrechts,  passim. 


10      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

tioned  in  this  book  and  never  respectfully.  The 
reader  will  look  in  vain  for  such  an  incorporation 
of  the  Hague  Regulations  in  this  official  text-book  as 
has  been  made  by  the  English  War  Office  in  our  own 
Manual  of  Military  Law.  Nor  is  the  reason  far  to 
seek.  The  German  Government  has  never  viewed 
with  favor  attempts  to  codify  the  laws  and  usages  of 
war.  Amiable  sentiments,  prolegomenous  resolu- 
tions, protestations  of  "  culture  "  and  "  humanity," 
she  has  welcomed  with  evangelical  fervor.  But  the 
moment  attempts  are  made  to  subject  these  volatile 
sentiments  to  pressure  and  liquefy  them  in  the  form 
of  an  agreement,  she  has  protested  that  to  particular- 
ize would  be  to  "  enfeeble  humane  and  civilizing 
thoughts."  13  Nothing  is  more  illuminating  as  to 
the  respective  attitudes  of  Germany  and  England  to 
such  international  agreements  than  the  discussions 
which  took  place  at  the  Hague  Conference  of  1907 
on  the  desirability  of  imposing  in  express  terms  re- 
strictions upon  the  laying  of  submarine  mines  in 
order  to  protect  innocent  shipping  in  neutral  waters. 
The  representatives  of  the  two  Powers  agreed  in  ad- 
mitting that  it  did  not  follow  that  because  the  Con- 
vention had  not  prohibited  a  certain  act  it  thereby 
sanctioned  it.  But  whereas  the  English  representa- 
tives regarded  this  as  a  reason  why  the  Convention 

is  Baron   Marschall   von   Bieberstein.     Actes   et  Documents 
(1907),  J.  86. 


The  German  View  of  War  11 

could  never  be  too  explicit,14  the  spokesman  of  Ger- 
many urged  it  as  a  reason  why  it  could  never  be  too 
ambiguous.  In  the  view  of  the  latter,  not  interna- 
tional law  but  "  conscience,  good  sense,  and  the  senti- 
ment of  duties  imposed  by  the  principles  of  human- 
ity will  be  the  surest  guides  for  the  conduct  of  sol- 
diers and  sailors  and  the  most  efficacious  guarantees 
against  abuse."  15  Conscience,  "  the  good  German 
Conscience,"  as  a  German  newspaper  has  recently 
called  it,  is,  as  we  have  seen,  an  accommodating  mon- 
itor, and  in  that  forum  there  are  only  too  many  spe- 
cial pleaders.  If  the  German  conscience  is  to  be  the 
sole  judge  of  the  lawfulness  of  German  practises, 
then  it  is  a  clear  case  of  "  the  right  arm  strikes  and 
the  left  arm  is  called  upon  to  decide  the  lawfulness  of 
the  blow."  It  is,  indeed,  difficult  to  see,  if  Baron 
von  Bieberstein's  view  of  international  agreementa 
be  the  right  one,  why  there  should  be  any  such  agree- 
ments at  all.  The  only  rule  which  results  from  such 
an  Economy  of  Truth  would  be  :  All  things  are  law- 
ful but  all  are  not  expedient.  And  such,  indeed,  is 
the  conclusion  of  the  German  War  Book. 

The  cynicism  of  this  book  is  not  more  remarkable 
than  its  affectation.  There  are  pages  in  it  of  the 
most  admirable  sentiment  —  witness  those  about  the 
turpitude  of  plundering  and  the  inviolability  of  neu- 


et  Documents  (1907),  I,  281    (Sir  Edward  Satow). 
Ibid.,  p.  282  (  Baron  Marschall  von  Bieberstein  )  ,  and  p.  86. 


12      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

tral  territory.  Taken  by  themselves,  they  form  the 
most  scathing  denunciation  of  the  conduct  of  the 
German  army  in  Belgium  that  could  well  be  con- 
ceived. Let  the  reader  weigh  carefully  the  follow- 
ing: 

Movable  private  property  which  in  earlier  times  was 
the  incontestable  booty  of  the  victor  is  held  by  modern 
opinion  to  be  inviolable.  The  carrying  away  of  gold, 
watches,  rings,  trinkets,  or  other  objects  of  value  is 
therefore  to  be  regarded  as  robbery,  and  correspondingly 
punishable. 

No  plundering  but  downright  burglary  is  it  for  a  man 
to  take  away  things  out  of  an  unoccupied  house  or  at  a 
time  when  the  occupant  happens  to  be  absent. 

Forced  contributions  (KriegscJiatzungen)  are  de- 
nounced as  "  a  form  of  plundering  "  rarely,  if  ever, 
to  be  justified,  as  requisitions  may  be,  by  the  plea  of 
necessity.  The  victor  has  no  right,  the  Book  adds, 
to  practise  them  in  order  to  recoup  himself  for  the 
cost  of  the  war,  or  to  subsidize  an  operation  against 
the  nation  whose  territory  is  in  his  occupation.  To 
extort  them  as  a  ransom  from  the  violence  of  war  is 
equally  unjustifiable:  thus  out  of  its  own  mouth  is 
the  German  staff  condemned  and  its  "  buccaneering 
levies  "  upon  the  forlorn  inhabitants  of  Belgium  held 
up  to  reprobation. 

Still  more  significant  are  the  remarks  on  the  right 
and  duty  of  neutrals.  The  inviolability  of  neutral 


The  German  View  of  War  13 

territory  and  the  sanctity  of  the  Geneva  Convention 
are  the  only  two  principles  of  international  law  which 
the  German  War  Book  admits  to  be  laws  of  perfect 
obligation.  A  neutral  State,  it  declares,  not  only 
may,  but  must  forbid  the  passage  of  troops  to  the 
subjects  of  both  belligerents.  If  either  attempts  it, 
the  neutral  State  has  the  right  to  resist  "  with  all  the 
means  in  its  power."  However  overwhelming  the 
necessity,  no  belligerent  must  succumb  to  the  tempta- 
tion to  trespass  upon  the  neutral  territory.  If  this 
be  true  of  a  neutral  State  it  is  doubly  true  of  a  neu- 
tralized State.  No  one  has  been  so  emphatic  on  this 
point  as  the  German  jurists  whose  words  the  War 
Book  is  so  fond  of  praying  in  aid.  The  Treaty  of 
London  guaranteeing  the  neutrality  of  Belgium  is 
declared  by  them  to  be  "  a  landmark  of  progress  in 
the  formation  of  a  European  polity  "  and  "  up  till 
now  no  Power  has  dared  to  violate  a  guarantee  of 
this  kind."  16 

"  He  who  injures  a  right  does  injury  to  the  cause  of 
right  itself,  and  in  these  guarantees  lies  the  express  obli- 
gation to  prevent  such  things.  .  .  .  Nothing  could  make 
the  situation  of  Europe  more  insecure  than  an  egotistical 
repudiation  by  the  great  States  of  these  duties  of  inter- 
national fellowship."  " 

i«  Holtzendorff,  III,  pp.  93,  108,  109. 

IT  IMd.  The  whole  subject  (of  the  neutrality  of  Belgium)  is 
examined  by  the  present  writer  in  War,  its  Conduct  and  its 
Legal  Results  (John  Murray). 


14      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

The  reader  will,  perhaps,  hardly  need  to  be  cau- 
tioned against  the  belligerent  footnotes  with  which 
the  General  Staff  has  illuminated  the  text.  They 
are,  as  he  will  observe,  mainly  directed  towards  illus- 
trating the  peculiar  depravity  of  the  French  in  1870. 
They  are  certainly  suspect,  and  all  the  more  so,  be- 
cause the  notorious  malpractices  of  the  Germans  in 
that  campaign  are  dismissed,  where  they  are  noticed 
at  all,  with  the  airy  remark  that  there  were  peculiar 
circumstances,  or  that  they  were  unauthorized,  or 
that  the  "  necessity  of  war  "  afforded  sufficient  justi- 
fication. All  this  is  ex  parte.  So  too,  to  a  large 
extent,  is  the  parade  of  professors  in  the  footnotes. 
They  are  almost  always  German  professors  and,  as 
we  shall  see  later,  the  German  professor  is,  and 
is  compelled  to  be,  a  docile  instrument  of  the 
State. 

The  book  has,  of  course,  a  permanent  value  apart 
from  the  light  it  throws  upon  contemporary  issues. 
Some  of  the  chapters,  such  as  that  on  the  right  and 
duties  of  neutrals,  represent  a  carefully  considered 
theory,  little  tainted  by  the  cynicism  which  disfigures 
the  rest  of  the  book.  It  should  be  of  great  interest 
and  value  to  those  of  us  who  are  engaged  in  studying 
the  problem  of  bringing  economic  pressure  to  bear 
upon  Germany,  by  enclosing  her  in  the  meshes  of 
conditional  contraband.  So,  too,  the  chapter  on  the 
treatment  of  Prisoners  of  War  will  have  a  special, 


The  German  View  of  War  15 

and  for  some  a  poignant,  interest  just  now.  The 
chapter  on  the  treatment  of  occupied  territory  is,  of 
course,  of  profound  significance  in  view  of  the  pres- 
ent state  of  Belgium. 


CHAPTER  II 

GEBMAN    DIPLOMACY    AND    STATECBAFT 

BISMARCK,  wrote  Hohenlohe,  who  ultimately  suc- 
ceeded him  as  Imperial  Chancellor,  "  handles  every- 
thing with  a  certain  arrogance  (Uebernut),  and  this 
gives  him  a  considerable  advantage  in  dealing  with 
the  timid  minds  of  the  older  European  diplomacy." 
This  native  arrogance  became  accentuated  after  the 
triumphs  of  1870  until,  in  Hohenlohe's  words,  Bis- 
marck became  "  the  terror  "  of  all  European  diplo- 
matists. That  word  is  the  clue  to  German  diplo- 
macy. The  terrorism  which  the  Germans  practise 
in  war  they  indoctrinate  in  peace.  It  was  a  favorite 
saying  of  Clausewitz,  whose  military  writings  enjoy 
an  almost  apostolic  authority  in  Germany,  that  War 
and  Peace  are  but  a  continuation  of  one  another  — 
"  War  is  nothing  but  a  continuation  of  political  in- 
tercourse with  a  mixture  of  other  means."  1  The 
same  lesson  is  written  large  on  every  page  of  von  der 
Goltz  2  and  Bernhardi.3  In  other  words,  war  pro- 

1  Vom  Kriege,  VIII,  Kap.  6  (B). 

2  The  Nation  in  Arms,  sec.  3 :     "  Policy  creates  the  total 
situation  in  which  the  State  engages  in  the  struggle " ;   and 
again,  "  it  is  clear  that  the  political  action  and  military  action 
ought  always  to  be  closely  united." 

3  Germany  and  the  Next  War:     "The  appropriate  and  con- 

16 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  17 

jects  its  dark  shadow  over  the  whole  of  German 
diplomacy.  The  dominant  postures  in  "  shining 
armor  "  at  critical  moments  in  the  peace  of  Europe, 
and  the  menacing  invocations  of  the  "  mailed  fist " 
are  not,  as  is  commonly;  supposed,  a  passionate 
idiosyncrasy  of  the  present  Emperor.  They  are  a 
legacy  of  the  Bismarckian  tradition.  To  keep  Eu- 
rope in  a  perpetual  state  of  nervous  apprehension  by 
somber  hints  of  war  was,  as  we  shall  see,  the  favorite 
method  by  which  Bismarck  attained  his  diplomatic 
ends.  For  the  German  Chancellerie  rumors  of  wars 
are  of  only  less  political  efficacy  than  wars  themselves. 
After  1870,  metaphors  of  war  became  part  of  the  nor- 
mal vocabulary  of  the  German  Government  in  times 
of  peace.  Not  only  so  but,  as  will  be  seen  in  the  two 
succeeding  chapters,  a  belligerent  emotion  suffused 
the  temperament  of  the  whole  German  people,  and 
alike  in  the  State  Universities,  and  the  stipendiary 
Press,  there  was  developed  a  cult  of  War  for  its  own 
sake.  The  very  vocabulary  of  the  Kaiser's  speeches 
has  been  coined  in  the  lecture-rooms  of  Berlin  Uni- 
versity. 

Now  War  is  at  best  but  a  negative  conception  and 

scious  employment  of  war  as  a  political  means  has  always  led 
to  happy  results."  And  again,  "  The  relations  between  two 
States  must  often  be  termed  a  latent  war  which  is  provision- 
ally being  waged  in  peaceful  rivalry.  Such  a  position  justifies 
the  employment  of  hostile  methods,  just  as  war  itself  does, 
since  in  such  a  case  both  parties  are  determined  to  employ 
them." 


18      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

its  adoption  as  the  Credo  of  German  thinkers  since 
1870  explains  why  their  contributions  to  Political 
Science  have  been  so  sterile.  More  than  that,  it  ac- 
counts for  the  decline  in  public  morality.  Polit- 
ically, Germany,  as  we  shall  see,  has  remained 
absolutely  stagnant.  She  is  now  no  nearer  self-gov- 
ernment than  she  was  in  1870 ;  she  is  much  farther 
removed  from  it  than  she  was  in  1848.  The  inevita- 
ble result  has  been,  that  politics  have  for  her  come  to 
mean  little  more  than  intrigues  in  high  places,  the 
deadly  struggle  of  one  contending  faction  at  court 
against  another,  with  the  peace  of  Europe  as  pawns 
in  the  game.  The  German  Empire,  like  the  Prus- 
sian kingdom,  has  little  more  than  a  paper  constitu- 
tion, a  lex  imperfecta  as  Gneist  called  it.  The 
Eeichstag  has  little  power  and  less  prestige,  and  its 
authority  as  a  representative  assembly  has  been  so 
enervated  by  the  shock  tactics  practised  by  the  Gov- 
ernment in  forcing,  or  threatening  to  force,  a  series 
of  dissolutions  to  punish  contumacious  behavior,  that 
it  is  little  better  than  a  debating  society.  A  vote  of 
censure  on  the  Government  has  absolutely  no  effect. 
Of  the  two  powers,  the  Army  and  the  Keichstag,  the 
Army  is  infinitely  the  stronger ;  there  is  no  law  such 
as  our  Army  Annual  Act  which  subjects  it  to  Par- 
liamentary control.  Even  the  Bundesrath4  (or 

*  The  Bundesrath  is  a  Second  Chamber,  a  Cabinet  or  Exec- 
utive Council,  and  a  Federal  Congress  of  State  Governments 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  19 

Federal  Council),  strong  as  it  is,  is  hardly  stronger 
than  the  German  General  Staff,  for  the  real  force 
which  welds  the  German  Empire  together  is  not  so 
much  this  council  of  plenipotentiaries  from  the 
States  as  the  military  hegemony  of  Prussia  and  the 
military  conventions  between  her  and  the  Southern 
States  by  which  the  latter  placed  their  armies  under 
her  supreme  control.  In  this  shirt  of  steel  the  body 
politic  is  enclosed  as  in  a  vice. 

Nothing  illustrates  the  political  lifelessness  of  Ger- 
many, the  arrogance  of  its  rulers  and  the  docility  of 
its  people  (for  whom,  as  will  be  seen,  the  former 
have  frequently  expressed  the  utmost  contempt) 
more  than  the  tortuous  course  of  German  diplomacy 
during  the  years  1870-1900.  I  shall  attempt  to 
sketch  very  briefly  the  political  history  of  those  years, 
particularly  in  the  light  of  the  policy  of  calculated 
Terrorism  by  which  the  German  Chancellerie  sought 
to  impose  its  yoke  upon  Europe.  Well  did  Lord 
Odo  Eussell  say  that  "  Bismarck's  sayings  inspired 
respect "  (he  might,  had  he  not  been  speaking  as  an 
ambassador,  have  used,  like  Hohenlohe,  a  stronger 
word)  "  and  his  silences  apprehension."  5  If  it  be 

all  in  one.  Indeed,  its  resemblance  to  a  Second  Chamber  is 
superficial.  It  can  dissolve  the  Reichstag  when  it  pleases. 
See  Laband,  Die  Enti&ickelung  des  Bundesraths,  Jahrbuch  des 
Oeffentlichen  Rechts,  1007,  Vol.  I,  p.  18,  and  also  his  Deutsches 
Staatsrecht,  Vol.  I,  passim. 

B  I  have  based  the  remarks  which  follow  on  a  close  study  of 


20 

true,  as  von  der  Goltz  says  it  is,  that  national  strategy 
is  the  expression  of  national  character  and  that  the 
German  method  is,  to  use  his  words,  "  a  brutal  of- 
fensive," nothing  could  bring  out  that  amiable  char- 
acteristic more  clearly  than  the  study  of  Bismarck's 
diplomacy.  The  German  is  brutal  in  war  just  be- 
cause he  is  insolent  in  peace.  Count  Herbert  "  can 
be  very  insolent,"  wrote  the  servile  Busch  of  Bis- 
marck's son,  "  which  in  diplomacy  is  very  useful."  6 
Bismarck's  attitude  towards  treaty  obligations  is 
one  of  the  chief  clues  to  the  history  of  the  years 
1870-1900.  International  policy,  he  once  wrote,  is 
"  a  fluid  element  which  under  certain  conditions  will 
solidify,  but  on  a  change  of  atmosphere  reverts  to  its 

German,  French,  and  English  authorities  —  among  others  upon 
the  following:  Bismarck,  Gedanken  und  Erinnerungen;  Ho- 
henlohe,  Denkwiirdigkeiten;  Hanotaux,  Histoire  de  la  France 
Contemporaine;  de  Broglie,  Mission  de  M.  de  Gontaut-Biron; 
Fitzmaurice,  The  Life  of  Lord  Granville.  All  these  are  the 
Avorks  of  statesmen  who  could  legitimately  say  of  their  times 
quorum  pars  magna  fui.  Lord  Fitzmaurice's  book,  apart  from 
its  being  the  work  of  a  statesman,  whose  knowledge  of  foreign 
affairs  is  equaled  by  few  and  surpassed  by  none,  is  indis- 
pensable to  a  study  of  Anglo-German  relations  since  1850, 
being  based  on  diplomatic  sources,  in  particular  the  despatches 
of  Lord  Odo  Russell.  Some  passages  in  The  Life  of  Lord  Lyt- 
ton  are  also  illuminating,  likewise  the  essays  of  that  prince 
of  French  historians,  Albert  Sorel.  But  I  have,  of  course,  also 
gone  to  the  text  of  treaties  and  original  documents. 

6  The  study  which  follows  is  based  on  cosmopolitan  mate- 
rials: The  reader  must  exercise  great  caution  in  using  polit- 
ical memories  such  as  those  of  Bismarck.  In  autobiography, 
of  all  forms  of  history,  as  Goethe  observes  in  the  preface  to 
Wahrheit  und  Dichtung,  it  is  supremely  difficult  for  the  writer 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  21 

original  condition."  7  The  process  of  solidification 
is  represented  by  the  making  of  treaties;  that  of 
melting  is  a  euphemism  for  the  breaking  of  them. 
To  reinsure  German's  future  by  taking  out  policies 
in  different  countries  in  the  form  of  secret  treaties 
of  alliance  while  concealing  the  existence  of  other 
and  conflicting  treaties  seemed  to  him  not  only  astute 
but  admirable.  Thus  having  persuaded  Austria- 
Hungary  to  enter  into  a  Triple  Alliance  with  Ger- 
many and  Italy  by  holding  out  as  the  inducement 
the  promise  of  protection  against  Russia,  Bismarck 
by  his  own  subsequent  confession  concluded  a  secret 
treaty  with  Russia  against  Austria.  To  play  off 
each  of  these  countries  against  the  other  by  inde- 
pendent professions  of  exclusive  loyalty  to  both  was 
the  Leit-motif  of  his  diplomacy.  Nor  did  he  treat 
the  collective  guarantees  of  European  treaties  with 
any  greater  respect.  Good  faith  was  a  negotiable 
security.  Hence  his  skilful  exploitation  of  the  Black 
Sea  clauses  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  (1856)  when  he 

to  escape  self-deception;  he  is  so  apt  to  read  himself  back- 
wards and  to  mistake  society's  influence  upon  him  for  his  in- 
fluence upon  society.  In  the  case  of  Bismarck  in  particular, 
his  autobiography  often  took  the  form  of  apologetics,  and  he 
invests  his  actions  with  a  foresight  which  they  did  not  always 
possess,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  so  anxious  to  depreci- 
ate his  rivals  (particularly  Gortchakoff)  that  he  often  robs 
himself  of  the  prestige  of  victory.  Hohenlohe  is,  in  this  re- 
spect, a  far  safer  guide.  He  was  not  as  great  a  man  as  Bis- 
marck, but  he  was  an  infinitely  more  honest  me. 

7  Oedanken  und  Erinnerungen,  Bd.  II,  Kap.  29,  p.  287. 


22      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

wished  to  secure  the  friendly  neutrality  of  Russia 
during  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  Russia,  it  will  be 
remembered,  suddenly  and  to  every  one's  surprise, 
denounced  those  clauses.  The  European  Powers,  on 
the  initiative  of  England,  disputed  Russia's  claim  to 
denounce  m-otu  proprio  an  international  obligation 
of  so  solemn  a  character,  and  Bismarck  responded 
to  Lord  Granville's  initiative  in  words  of  ostentatious 
propriety : 

"That  the  Russian  Circular  of  the  19th  October 
[denouncing  the  clauses  in  question]  had  taken  him 
by  surprise.  That  while  he  had  always  held  that  the 
Treaty  of  1856  pressed  with  undue  severity  upon  Rus- 
sia, he  entirely  disapproved  of  the  manner  adopted 
and  the  time  selected  by  the  Russian,  Government  to 
force  the  revision  of  the  Treaty." 8 

Nearly  a  generation  later  Bismarck  confessed,  and 
prided  himself  on  the  confession,  in  his  Reminis- 
cences,9 that  he  had  himself  instigated  Russia  to  de- 
nounce the  Black  Sea  clauses  of  the  Treaty ;  that  he 
had  not  only  instigated  this  repudiation  but  had 
initiated  it  as  affording  "  an  opportunity  of  improv- 
ing our  relations  with  Russia."  Russia  succumbed 

s  Notes  of  Lord  Odo  Russell,  British  Ambassador  at  Berlin, 
of  a  conversation  with  Bismarck,  reported  in  a  despatch  of 
November  22nd,  1870,  to  Lord  Granville,  and  published  in  the 
Parliamentary  Papers  of  1871  [Cd.  245]. 

»  Gedanken  und  Erinnerwngen,  II,  Kap.  23. 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  23 

to  the  temptation,  but,  as  Bismarck  cheerfully  ad- 
mits, not  without  reluctance. 

This,  however,  is  not  all :  Europe  "  saved  her 
face "  by  putting  on  record  in  the  Conference  of 
London  (1871)  a  Protocol,  subscribed  by  the  Pleni- 
potentiaries of  all  the  Powers,  in  which  it  was  laid 
down  as 

"  an  essential  principle  of  the  law  of  nations  that  no 
Power  can  repudiate  treaty  engagements  or  modify 
treaty  provisions,  except  with  the  consent  of  the  con- 
tracting parties  by  mutual  agreement." 

This  instrument  has  been  called,  not  inaptly,  the 
foundation  of  the  public  law  of  Europe.  It  was  in 
virtue  of  this  principle  that  Russia  was  obliged  to 
submit  the  Russo-Turkish  Treaty  of  San  Stefano, 
and  with  it  the  fruits  of  her  victories  in  1877-8  to  the 
arbitrament  of  the  Congress  of  Berlin.  At  that  Con- 
gress Bismarck  played  his  favorite  role  of  "  honest 
broker,"  and  there  is  considerable  ground  for  believ- 
ing that  he  sold  the  same  stock  several  times  over  to 
different  clients  and  pocketed  the  "  differences." 
What  kind  of  cfonnicting  assurances  he  gave  to  the 
different  Powers  will  never  be  fully  known,  but  there 
is  good  ground  for  believing  that  in  securing  the 
temporary  occupation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  he  had 
in  mind  the  ultimate  Germanization  of  the  Adriatic, 
and  that  domination  of  the  Mediterranean  at  the  ex- 


24      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

pense  of  England  which  has  long  been  the  dream  of 
German  publicists  from  Treitschke  onward.10  What, 
however,  clearly  emerged  from  the  Congress,  and  was 
embodied  in  Article  XXV  of  the  Berlin  Treaty,  was, 
that  Austria  was  to  occupy  and,  administer  Bosnia- 
Herzegovina  under  a  European  mandate.  She  ac- 
quired lordship  without  ownership;  in  other  words, 
the  territory  became  a  Protectorate.  Her  title,  as  it 
originated  in,  so  it  was  limited  by,  the  Treaty  of 
Berlin.  Exactly  thirty  years  later,  in  the  autumn 
of  1908,  Austria,  acting  in  concert  with  Germany, 
abused  her  fiduciary  position  and  without  any  man- 
date from  the  Powers  annexed  the  territory  of  which 
she  had  been  made  the  guardian.  This  arbitrary  ac- 
tion was  a  violation  of  the  principle  to  which  she  and 
Germany  had  subscribed  at  the  London  Conference, 
and  Sir  Edward  Grey  attempted,  as  Lord  Granville 
had  done  before  him,  to  preserve  the  credit  of  the 
public  law  of  Europe  by  a  conference  which  should 
consider  the  compensation  due  to  Servia  for  an  act 
which  so  gravely  compromised  her  security.  Rus- 
sia, France,  and  Italy  joined  with  Great  Britain  in 
this  heroic,  if  belated,  attempt  to  save  the  interna- 
tional situation.  It  was  at  this  moment  (Marchj 
1909)  that  Germany  appeared  on  the  scene  "in 
shining  armor,"  despatched  a  veiled  ultimatum  to 

10  See  the  remarkable  articles,  based  on  unpublished  docu- 
ments by  M.  Hanotaux,  in  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  Sept. 
15th  and  Oct.  1st,  1908,  on  "  Le  Congres  de  Berlin." 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  25 

Russia,  with  a  covert  threat  to  mobilize,  and  forced 
her  to  abandon  her  advocacy  of  the  claims  of  Servia 
and,  with  them,  of  the  public  law  of  Europe. 

Thus  did  History  repeat  itself.  Germany  stood 
forth  once  again  as  the  chartered  libertine  of  Europe 
whom  no  faith  could  bind  and  no  duty  oblige.  May 
it  not  be  said  of  her  what  Machiavelli  said  of  Alex- 
ander Borgia :  "  E  non  f  u  mai  uomo  che  avesse  mag- 
giore  efficacia  in  asseveraie,  e  che  con  maggiori  giura- 
menti  affermasse  una  cosa,  e  che  1'osservasse  meno."  n 

It  would  carry  me  far  beyond  the  limits  of  this 
Introduction  to  trace  in  like  detail  the  German  policy 
of  S  char  f  macherei  which  consisted,  to  use  the  mor- 
dant phrase  of  M.  Hanotaux,  in  putting  up  to  auction 
that  which  is  not  yours  to  sell  and,  not  infrequently, 
knocking  it  down  to  more  than  one  bidder.  That 
Bismarck  encouraged  Russian  ambitions  in  Asia  and 
French  ambitions  in  Africa  with  the  view  of  making 
mischief  between  each  of  them  and  England  is  no- 
torious.12 In  his  earlier  attitude  he  was  content  to 

11  "  No  man  ever  had  a  more  effective  manner  of  asseverating, 
or  made  promises  with  more  solemn  protestations,  or  observed 
them  less,"  II  Principe,  Cap.  18. 

12  Cf.  Lord  Ampthill's  despatch    (Aug.  25th,   1884).     "He 
has  discovered  an  unexplored  mine  of  popularity  in  starting  a 
colonial  policy  which  public  opinion  persuades  itself  to  be  anti- 
English,  and  the  slumbering  theoretical  envy  of  the  Germans 
at  our  wealth  and  our  freedom  has  taken  the  form  of  abuse 
of  everything  English  in  the  Press." — Fitzmaurice's  Qranville, 
II,  358. 


26      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

play  the  role  of  tertius  gaudens;  in  his  later  he  was 
an  active  agent  provocateur  —  particularly  during  the 
years  1883-1885,  when  he  joined  in  the  scramble  for 
Africa.  The  earlier  attitude  is  well  indicated  in 
Hohenlohe's  revelations,  that  Bismarck  regarded 
French  colonial  operations  as  a  timely  diversion  from 
the  Rhine,  and  would  not  be  at  all  sorry  "  to  see  the 
English  and  French  locomotives  come  into  collision," 
and  a  French  annexation  of  Morocco  would  have  had 
his  benevolent  approval.  After  1883  his  attitude 
was  less  passive  but  not  less  mischievous.  Ten  years 
earlier  he  had  told  Lord  Odo  Eussell  that  colonies 
"  would  only  be  a  cause  of  weakness  "  to  Germany. 
But  by  1883  he  had  been  slowly  and  reluctantly  con- 
verted to  the  militant  policy  of  the  Colonial  party 
and  the  cry  of  Welt  politik  was  as  good  as  a  war- 
scare  for  electioneering  purposes.  It  was  in  these 
days  that  hatred  of  England,  a  hatred  conceived  in 
jealousy  of  her  world-Empire,  was  brought  forth, 
and  the  obstetrics  of  Treitschke  materially  assisted 
its  birth.  Bismarck,  however,  as  readers  of  his 
Reminiscences  are  well  aware,  had  an  intellectual 
dislike  of  England  based  on  her  forms  of  govern- 
ment. He  loved  the  darker  ways  of  diplomacy  and 
he  thought  our  Cabinet  system  fatal  to  them.  He 
had  an  intense  dislike  of  Parliamentarism,  he  de- 
spised alliances  "  for  which  the  Crown  is  not  an- 
swerable but  only  the  fleeting  cabinet  of  the  day," 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  27 

and  above  all  he  hated  plain  dealing  and  publicity. 
"  It  is  astonishing,"  wrote  Lord  Ampthill,  "  how 
cordially  Bismarck  hates  our  Blue  Books." 

The  story  of  Bismarck's  diplomatic  relations  with 
England  during  these  years  exhibits  the  same  fea- 
tures of  duplicity  tempered  by  violence  as  marked 
his  relations  with  the  rest  of  Europe.  He  acquired 
Samoa  by  a  deliberate  breach  of  faith,  and  his  pre- 
tense of  negotiations  with  this  country  to  delimit  the 
frontiers  of  English  and  German  acquisitions  while 
he  stole  a  march  upon  us  were  properly  stigmatized 
by  the  Colonial  Office  as  "shabby  behavior." 
Whether  he  really  egged  on  France  to  "  take  Tunis  " 
in  order  to  embroil  her  with  England  will  perhaps 
never  be  really  known,13  but  it  was  widely  suspected 
in  France  that  his  motives  in  supporting,  if  not  in- 
stigating,14 the  colonial  policy  of  Jules  Ferry  would 
not  bear  a  very  close  examination.  That  he  re- 
garded it  as  a  timely  diversion  from  the  Rhine  is 
certain;  that  he  encouraged  it  as  a  promising  em- 
barrassment to  England  is  probable.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  much  the  same  construction  is  to  be 
put  on  his  attitude  towards  Russia's  aspirations  in 

13  For  a  careful  examination  of  the  story  see  Fitzmaurice, 
II,  234  and  429. 

n  There  is  a  spirited,  but  not  altogether  convincing,  vindi- 
cation of  Ferry  in  Rambaud's  Jules  Ferry,  p.  395.  It  is  not 
Ferry's  honesty  that  is  in  question,  but  his  perspicacity. 


28      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

Asia;  that  they  should  divert  Russia  from  Europe 
was  necessary;  that  they  might  entangle  her  with 
England  was  desirable. 

Eear  of  Russia  has,  in  fact,  always  been  an  obses- 
sion of  the  German  Government.  That  fear  is  the 
just  Nemesis  of  Frederick  the  Great's  responsibility 
for  the  infamous  Partition  of  Poland.  The  reader, 
who  wants  to  understand  the  causes  of  this,  cannot 
do  better  than  study  an  old  map  of  the  kingdom  of 
Poland,  and  compare  it  with  a  map  of  Poland  after 
the  first  and  second  Partitions.  The  effect  of  those 
cynical  transactions  was  to  extinguish  an  ancient 
"  buffer  state,"  separating  Prussia,  Austria,  and  Rus- 
sia, and  by  extinguishing  it  to  bring  them  into 
menacing  contiguity  with  each  other.  Xever  has 
any  crime  so  haunted  its  perpetrators.  Poland  has 
been  the  permanent  distraction  of  the  three  nations 
who  dismembered  her,  each  perpetually  suspicious 
of  the  other  two,  and  this  fact  is  the  main  clue  to  the 
history  of  Eastern  Europe.15  The  fear  of  Russia,  and 
of  a  Russo-French  or  a  Rosso-Austrian  Alliance,  is 
the  dominant  feature  of  Bismarck's  diplomacy.  He 
was,  indeed,  the  evil  genius  of  Russia  for,  by  his 
own  confession,16  he  intrigued  to  prevent  her  from 

is  Its  profound  reactions  have  been  worked  out  by  the  hand 
of  a  master  in  Sorel's  L'Europe  et  la  Revolution  franqaise, 
and,  in  particular,  in  his  La  Question  d'Orient,  which  is  a 
searching  analysis  of  these  tortuous  intrigues. 

16  Cf.  Bismarck's  Erinnerungen  (the  chapter  on  the  Alvens- 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  29 

pursuing  a  liberal  policy  towards  Poland,  for  fear 
that  she  would  thereby  be  drawn  into  friendship 
with  France.  To  induce  her  to  break  faith  with 
Russia,  her  Polish  subjects  in  one  case,  and  with 
Europe  in  another  —  the  former  by  suppressing  the 
Polish  constitutional  movement;  the  latter  by  re- 
pudiating the  Black  Sea  clauses  —  was  to  isolate  her 
from  Europe.  German  writers  to-day  affect  to  speak 
of  "  Muscovite  barbarism "  and  "  Oriental  des- 
potism," but  it  has  been  the  deliberate  policy  of 
Germany  to  cut  Russia  off  from  the  main  stream  of 
European  civilization  —  to  turn  her  face  Eastwards, 
thereby  Bismarck  hoped,  to  quote  his  own  words,  to 
"  weaken  her  pressure  on  our  Eastern  frontiers." 

But  Bismarck's  contempt  for  treaties  and  his  love 
for  setting  other  Powers  by  the  ears  were  venial  com- 
pared with  his  policy  of  Terrorism.  His  attitude  to 
France  from  1870  to  the  day  of  his  retirement  from 
office  —  and  it  has  been  mis-stated  many  times  by  his 
successors  —  was  very  much  that  which  Newman 
ascribed  to  the  Erastian  view  of  the  treatment  of  the 
church  — "  to  keep  her  low  "  and  in  a  perpetual  state 
of  terror-stricken  servility.  That  this  is  no  exaggera- 
tion will  be  apparent  from  what  follows  here  about 

leben  Convention)  :  "It  was  our  interest  to  oppose  the  party 
in  the  Russian  Cabinet  which  had  Polish  proclivities  .  .  .  be- 
cause a  Polish-Russian  policy  was  calculated  to  vitalize  that 
Russo-French  sympathy  against  which  Prussia's  effort  had 
been  directed  since  the  peace  of  Paris." 


30      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

the  war  scares  with  which  he  terrified  France,  and 
with  France  Europe  also,  in  the  years  1873-5,  the 
years,  when,  as  our  ambassador  at  Paris,  Lord  Lytton, 
has  put  it,  he  "  played  with  her  like  a  cat  with  a 
mouse."  17  Perhaps  the  most  illuminating  account  of 
these  tenebrous  proceedings  is  to  be  derived  from 
Hohenlohe,  who  accepted  the  offer  of  the  German 
Embassy  at  Paris  in  May,  1874.  The  post  was  no 
easy  one.  There  had  already  been  a  "  scare  "  in  the 
previous  December,  when  Bismarck  menaced  the 
Due  de  Broglie  with  war,  using  the  attitude  of  the 
French  Bishops  as  a  pretext ;  18  and,  although  Hohen- 
lohe's  appointment  was  at  first  regarded  as  an  eireni- 
con, there  followed  a  period  of  extreme  tension,  when, 
as  the  Due  Decazes  subsequently  confessed,  French 
Ministers  were  "  living  at  the  mercy  of  the  smallest 
incident,  the  least  mistake." 

The  truth  about  the  subsequent  war  scare  of  1875 
is  still  a  matter  of  speculation,  but  the  documents 
published  of  late  years  by  de  Broglie  and  Hanotaux, 
and  the  despatches  of  Lord  Odo  Eussell,  have  thrown 
considerable  suspicion  of  a  very  positive  kind  on 

IT  Life  of  Lord  Lytton,  II,  pp.  260  seq.  On  the  whole  story 
see  Hohenlohe  passim;  also  Hanotaux,  Vol.  Ill,  ch.  iv;  de 
Broglie's  Gontaut-Biron  and  Fitzmaurice's  Granville.  The 
cheerfully  malevolent  Busch  is  also  sometimes  illuminating. 

is  It  was  on  this  occasion  that,  according  to  Hanotaux, 
quoting  from  a  private  document  of  the  Due  Decazes,  Lord 
Odo  Russell  reported  an  interview  with  Bismarck,  in  which 
the  latter  said  he  wanted  "to  finish  France  off." 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  31 

Bismarck's  plea  that  it  was  all  a  malicious  invention 
of  Gontaut-Biron,  the  French  Ambassador,  and  of 
Gortchakoff.  A  careful  collation  of  the  passages  in 
Hohenlohe's  Memoirs  goes  far  to  confirm  these  sus- 
picions, and,  incidentally,  to  reveal  Bismarck's  inner 
diplomacy  in  a  very  sinister  light.  Hohenlohe  was 
appointed  to  succeed  the  unhappy  Arnim,  who  had 
made  himself  obnoxious  to  Bismarck  by  his  inde- 
pendence, and  he  was  instructed  by  the  Chancellor, 
that  it  was  to  the  interest  of  Germany  to  see  that 
Trance  should  become  "  a  weak  Republic  and  an- 
archical," so  as  to  be  a  negligible  quantity  in  Euro- 
pean politics,  on  which  the  Emperor  William  I  re- 
marked to  Hohenlohe  that  "  that  was  not  a  policy," 
and  was  not  "  decent,"  subsequently  confiding  to 
Hohenlohe  that  Bismarck  was  trying  "  to  drive  him 
more  and  more  into  war";  whereupon  Hohenlohe 
confidently  remarked :  "  I  know  nothing  of  it,  and 
I  should  be  the  first  to  hear  of  it."  Hohenlohe  soon 
found  reason  to  change  his  opinion.  As  Gortchakoff 
remarked  to  Decazes,  "  they  have  a  difficult  way  with 
diplomatists  at  Berlin,"  and  Hohenlohe  was  in- 
structed to  press  the  French  Ministry  for  the  recall  of 
Gontaut-Biron,  against  whom  Bismarck  complained 
on  account  of  his  Legitimist  opinions  and  his  friend- 
ship with  the  Empress  Augusta.  Thereupon,  that 
supple  and  elusive  diplomat,  the  Due  Decazes,  par- 
ried by  inviting  an  explanation  of  the  menacing 


32      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

words  which  Gontaut-Biron  declared  had  been  ut- 
tered to  him  by  Radowitz,  a  Councilor  of  Legation 
in  Berlin,  to  the  effect  that  "  it  would  be  both  politic 
and  Christian  to  declare  war  at  once,"  the  Duke 
adding  shrewdly :  "  One  doesn't  invent  these 
things."  Hohenlohe  in  his  perplexity  tried  to  get 
at  the  truth  from  Bismarck,  and  met  with  what 
seems  to  us  a  most  disingenuous  explanation.  Bis- 
marck said  Radowitz  denied  the  whole  thing,  but 
added  that,  even  if  he  had  said  it,  Gontaut-Biron  had 
no  right  to  report  it.  He  admitted,  however,  that 
Radowitz  made  mischief  and  "  egged  on  "  Billow,  the 
Foreign  Secretary.  "  You  may  be  sure,"  he  added, 
"  that  these  two  between  them  would  land  us  in  a 
war  in  four  weeks  if  I  didn't  act  as  safety-valve." 
Hohenlohe  took  advantage  of  this  confession  to  press 
for  the  despatch  of  Radowitz  to  some  distant  Em- 
bassy "  to  cool  himself."  To  this  Bismarck  assented, 
but  a  few  days  later  declared  that  Radowitz  was  in- 
dispensable. When  Hohenlohe  attempted  to  sound 
Bismarck  on  the  subject  the  Chancellor  showed  the 
utmost  reserve.  After  the  war  scare  had  passed, 
Decazes  related  to  Hohenlohe  an  earlier  example  of 
Imperial  truculence  on  the  part  of  Arnim,  who,  on 
leaving  after  a  call,  turned  round  as  he  reached  the 
door  and  called  out :  "  I  have  forgotten  one  thing. 
Recollect  that  I  forbid  you  to  get  possession  of 
Tunis " ;  and  when  Decazes  affected  to  regard  the 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  33 

matter  as  a  jest,  Arnim.  repeated  with  emphasis: 
"  Yes,  I  forbid  it."  Hohenlohe  adds  that  an  exami- 
nation of  his  predecessor's  papers  convinced  him  that 
Arnim  did  not  speak  without  express  authorization. 
When  the  elections  for  the  French  Chamber  are 
imminent  in  the  autumn  of  1877,  Bismarck  informs 
Hohenlohe  that  Germany  will  adopt  "  a  threatening 
attitude,"  but  "  the  scene  will  be  laid  in  Berlin,  not 
in  Paris."  The  usual  Press  campaign  followed, 
much  to  the  vexation  of  the  Emperor,  who  complained 
to  Hohenlohe  that  the  result  of  these  "  pin-pricks  " 
(Nadelstiche)  would  provoke  the  French  people  be- 
yond endurance. 

In  studying  this  calculated  truculence  we  have  to 
remember  that  in  Germany  foreign  and  domestic 
policy  are  inextricably  interwoven.  A  war  scare  is 
with  the  German  Government  a  favorite  method  of 
bringing  the  Reichstag  to  a  docile  frame  of  mind 
and  diverting  it  from  inconvenient  criticism  of  the 
Government's  policy  at  home.  Moreover,  just  as 
war  is,  in  von  der  Goltz's  words,  a  reflection  of  na- 
tional character,  so  is  diplomacy.  A  nation's  char- 
acter is  revealed  in  its  diplomacy  just  as  a  man's 
breeding  is  revealed  in  his  conversation.19  We  must 
therefore  take  into  account  the  polity  of  Germany 
and  its  political  standards. 

19  Cf .  Albert  Sorel :  "  La  diplomatic  est  1'expression  des 
moeurs  politiques  " ;  and  cf .  his  remarkable  essay,  "  La  Dip- 
lomatic et  le  progre's,"  in  Essais  d'histoire  et  de  critique. 


34      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

The  picture  of  the  Prussian  autocracy  in  the  later 
days  of  Bismarck's  rule  which,  we  can  reconstruct 
from  different  entries  in  Hohenlohe's  Journal  from 
the  year  1885  onwards  is  a  very  somber  one.  It  is 
a  picture  of  suspicion,  treachery,  vacillation,  and 
calumny  in  high  places  which  remind  one  of  nothing 
so  much  as  the  Court  of  the  later  Bourbons.  It  is 
a  regime  of  violence  abroad  and  dissensions  at  home. 
Bismarck's  health  was  failing  him,  and  with  his 
health  his  temper.  He  complained  to  Hohenlohe 
that  his  head  "  grew  hot "  the  moment  he  worked, 
and  the  latter  hardly  dared  to  dispute  with  him  on 
the  gravest  matters  of  Stata  Readers  of  Busch  will 
remember  his  frank  disclosures  of  the  anarchy  of 
the  Foreign  Office  when  Bismarck  was  away :  "  if 
the  Chief  gives  violent  instructions,  they  are  carried 
out  with  still  greater  violence."  In  Hohenlohe  we 
begin  to  see  all  the  grave  implications  of  this,  Bis- 
marck, with  what  Lord  Odo  Eussell  called  his  pas- 
sion for  authority,  was  fond  of  sneering  at  English 
foreign  policy  as  liable  to  be  blown  about  with  every 
wind  of  political  doctrine ;  but  if  Parliamentary  con- 
trol has  its  defects,  autocracy  has  defects  more  in- 
sidious still.  Will  becomes  caprice,  and  foreign  re- 
lations are  at  the  mercy  of  bureaucrats  who  have  no 
sense  of  responsibility  so  long  as  they  can  adroitly 
flatter  their  master.  When  a  bureaucrat  trained 
under  this  system  arrives  at  power,  the  result  may 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  35 

be  nothing  less  than  disastrous.  This  was  what  hap- 
pened when  Bismarck's  instrument,  Holstein,  con- 
centrated power  into  his  own  hands  at  the  Foreign 
Office ;  and  as  the  Neue  Freie  Presse  20  pointed  out 
in  its  disclosures  on  his  fall  (1906),  the  results  are 
writ  large  in  the  narrowly  averted  catastrophe  of  a 
war  with  France  in  1905.  Bismarck's  disciples  had 
all  his  calculated  violence  without  its  timeliness.  In 
the  Foreign  Office,  Hohenlohe  discovered  a  kind  of 
anarchical  "  republicanism  " — "  nobody,"  in  Bis- 
marck's frequent  absence  "  will  own  responsibility 
to  any  one  else."  "  Bismarck  is  nervously  excit- 
able," writes  Hohenlohe  in  March,  1885,  "  and  har- 
asses his  subordinates  and  frightens  them,  so  that 
they  see  more  behind  his  expression  than  there  really 
is."  Like  most  small  men,  in  terror  themselves,  they 
terrorized  others.  Moreover,  the  disinclination  of 
the  Prussian  mind,  which  Bismarck  himself  once 
noted,  to  accept  any  responsibility  which  is  not  cov- 
ered by  instructions,  tended  to  reduce  the  German 
Ambassadors  abroad  to  the  level  of  mere  aides-de- 
camp. Hohenlohe  found  himself  involved  in  the 
same  embarrassments  at  Paris  as  Count  Minister  did 
in  London.  Any  one  who  has  studied  the  inner  his- 
tory of  German  foreign  policy  must  have  divined  a 
secret  diplomacy  as  devious  of  its  kind  as  that  of 

20 June  3rd,  1906,  in  a  remarkable  article  entitled  "Hoi- 
stein,"  which  is  a  close  study  of  the  inner  organization  of 
the  German  Foreign  Office  and  its  traditions. 


36      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

Louis  XV.  Of  its  exact  bearings  little  is  known,  but 
a  great  deal  may  reasonably  be  suspected.  There  is 
always  the  triple  diplomacy  of  the  Court,  the  Im- 
perial Chancery,  and  lastly  the  Diplomatic  Service, 
which  is  not  necessarily  in  the  confidence  of  either. 
The  same  debilitating  influences  of  a  dictatorship 
were  at  work  in  Ministerial  and  Parliamentary  life. 
Bismarck  had  an  equal  contempt  for  the  collective 
responsibility  of  Ministers  and  for  Parliamentary 
control.  Having  done  his  best  to  deprive  the  Mem- 
bers of  the  Reichstag  of  power,  he  was  annoyed  at 
their  irresponsibility.  He  called  men  like  Bennig- 
sen  and  Windhorst  silly  schoolboy  politicians  (Karl- 
chen-Miesnick-Tertianen)  or  "  lying  scoundrels " 
(verlogene  Halunken).  He  was  surprised  that  rep- 
resentation without  control  resulted  in  faction.  It 
is  the  Nemesis  of  his  own  political  doctrines.  When 
he  met  with  opposition  he  clamored  for  repressive 
measures,  and  could  not  understand  some  of  the 
scruples  of  the  Liberals  as  to  the  exceptional  laws 
against  the  Socialists.  Moreover,  having  tried,  like 
another  Richelieu,  to  reduce  his  fellow-Ministers  to 
the  position  of  clerks,  he  was  annoyed  at  their  want 
of  corporate  spirit,  and  when  they  refused  to  follow 
him  into  his  retirement,  he  declaimed  against  their 
apostasy  in  having  "  left  him  in  the  lurch."  He 
talked  at  one  time  of  abolishing  the  Reichstag;  at 
another  of  having  a  special  post  created  for  himself 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  37 

aa  "  General- Adjutant."  He  complained  of  over- 
work —  and  his  energy  was  Titanic  —  but  he  in- 
sisted on  keeping  his  eye  on  everything,  conscien- 
tiously enough,  because,  he  tells  Hohenlohe,  "  he 
could  not  put  his  name  to  things  which  did  not  reflect 
his  own  mind."  But  perhaps  the  gravest  moral  of  it 
all  is  the  Nemesis  of  deception.  It  is  difficult  to  be 
both  loved  and  feared,  said  Machiavelli.  There  is 
a  somber  irony  in  the  remark  of  the  Czar  to  the  Em- 
peror in  1892,  which  the  latter  repeated  to  Hohen- 
lohe. Bismarck  had  been  compelled  to  retire  be- 
cause he  had  failed  to  induce  the  Emperor  to  violate 
Germany's  contractual  obligations  to  Austria  by  re- 
newing his  secret  agreement  with  Russia,  and  he  con- 
soled himself  in  his  retirement  with  the  somewhat 
unctuous  reflection  that  he  was  a  martyr  to  the  cause 
of  Russo-German  friendship,  betrayed,  according  to 
him,  by  Caprivi.  "  Do  you  know,"  said  the  young 
Emperor  (in  August,  1892),  "the  Czar  has  told  me 
he  has  every  trust  in  Caprivi;  whereas  when  Bis- 
marck has  said  anything  to  him  he  has  always  had 
the  conviction  that  *  he  is  tricking  me/  '  We  are 
reminded  of  the  occasion  when  Talleyrand  told  the 
truth  so  frankly  that  his  interlocutor  persisted  in 
regarding  it  as  an  elaborate  form  of  deception. 
After  all,  there  are  advantages,  even  in  diplomacy, 
in  being  what  Schuvaloff  called  Caprivi,  a  "  too  hon- 
est man."  It  was  the  same  with  the  domestic  atmos- 


38 

phera  Bismarck,  an  adept  at  deceiving,  is  always 
complaining  of  deception;  a  master  of  intrigue,  he 
is  always  declaiming  against  the  intrigues  of  others. 
He  inveighs  against  the  Empress  Augusta:  "for 
fifty  years  she  has  been  my  opponent  with  the  Em- 
peror." He  lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  distrust,  he 
was  often  insolent,  and  always  suspicious.  It  af- 
fected all  his  diplomatic  intercourse,  and  was  not  at 
all  to  Hohenlohe's  taste.  "  He  handles  everything 
with  a  certain  arrogance  (Uebermut),"  once  wrote 
Hohenlohe  (as  we  have  already  said)  of  a  discussion 
with  him  over  foreign  affairs.  "  This  has  always 
been  his  way." 

All  these  tendencies  came  to  a  head  when  the  scep- 
ter passed  from  the  infirm  hands  of  William  I  to 
those  of  a  dying  King,  around  whose  death-bed  the 
military  party  and  the  Chancellor's  party  began  to 
intrigue  for  influence  over  the  young  Prince  whose 
advent  to  empire  was  hourly  expected.  Of  these  in- 
trigues Hohenlohe,  who  was  now  Statthalter  of  Al- 
sace-Lorraine, soon  began  to  feel  the  effects  without 
at  first  discovering  the  cause.  He  loved  the  people 
of  the  Eeichsland,  was  a  friend  of  France,  and  an 
advocate  of  liberal  institutions,  and  in  this  spirit  he 
strove  to  administer  the  incorporated  territories. 
But  the  military  party  worked  against  him,  hoping 
to  secure  the  abolition  of  the  moderate  measure  of 
local  government  and  Reichstag  representation  which 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  39 

the  Provinces  possessed;  and  when  the  latter  re- 
turned a  hostile  majority  to  the  Reichstag  they 
redoubled  their  efforts  for  a  policy  of  "  Thorough." 
Bismarck  gave  but  a  lukewarm  support  to  Hohenlohe 
and  insisted  on  the  enforcement  of  drastic  passport 
regulations,  which,  combined  with  the  Schnaebele 
affair  (on  which  the  Memoirs  are  very  reticent),  al- 
most provoked  France  to  War  —  naturally  enough, 
in  the  opinion  of  Hohenlohe,  and  inevitably,  accord- 
ing to  the  forebodings  of  the  German  Military  At- 
tache at  Paris.  To  Hohenlohe's  imploring  repre- 
sentations Bismarck  replied  with  grim  jests  about 
Alva's  rule  in  the  Netherlands,  adding  that  it  is  all 
done  to  show  the  French  "  that  their  noise  doesn't 
alarm  us."  Meanwhile  Switzerland  was  alienated, 
France  injured,  and  Austria  suspicious.  But  Hohen- 
lohe, after  inquiries  in  Berlin  and  Baden,  began  to 
discover  the  reason.  Bismarck  feared  the  influence 
of  the  military  party  over  the  martial  spirit  of  Prince 
William,  and  was  determined  to  show  himself  equally 
militant  in  order  to  secure  his  dynasty.  "  His  sole 
object  is  to  get  his  son  Herbert  into  the  saddle," 
said  Bleichroder ;  "  so  there  is  no  hope  of  an  improve- 
ment in  Alsace-Lorraine," —  although  Prince  Her- 
bert alienated  everybody  by  his  insolence,  which  was 
so  gross  that  the  Prince  of  Wales  (King  Edward), 
at  this  time  in  Berlin,  declared  that  he  could 
scarcely  restrain  himself  from  showing  him  the  door. 


40      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

The  leader  of  the  military  party,  Waldersee,  was 
hardly  more  public-spirited.  He  had,  according  to 
Bismarck,  been  made  Chief  of  Staff  by  Moltke,  over 
the  heads  of  more  competent  men,  because  he  was 
more  docile  than  they.  Between  these  military  and 
civil  autocracies  the  struggle  for  the  possession  of 
the  present  Emperor  raged  remorselessly,  and  with 
appalling  levity  they  made  the  peace  of  two  great 
nations  the  pawns  in  the  game.  The  young  Em- 
peror is  seen  in  Hohenlohe's  Memoirs  feeling  his 
way,  groping  in  the  dark;  but  those  who,  like  the 
Grand  Duke  of  Baden,  knew  the  strength  of  his 
character,  foresaw  the  end.  At  first,  he  "  doesn't 
trust  himself  to  hold  a  different  opinion  from  Bis- 
marck " ;  but,  "  as  soon  as  he  perceives  that  Bis- 
marck doesn't  tell  him  everything,"  predicted  the 
Grand  Duke,  "  there  will  be  trouble."  Meanwhile 
Waldersee  was  working  for  war,  for  no  better  reason 
than  that  he  was  getting  old,  and  spoiling  for  a  fight 
before  it  was  too  late  for  him  to  take  the  field. 

"For  Bismarck's  dismissal  there  were  various 
causes :  differences  in  domestic  policy  and  in  foreign, 
and  an  absolute  impasse  on  the  question  whether 
Bismarck's  fellow-Ministers  were  to  be  treated  as 
colleagues  or  subordinates,  "  Bismarck,"  said  Ca- 
privi  afterwards,  "  had  made  a  treaty  with  Russia 
by  which  we  guaranteed  her  a  free  hand  in  Bulgaria 
and  Constantinople,  and  Russia  bound  herself  to 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  41 

remain  neutral  in  a  war  with  France.  That  would 
have  meant  the  shattering  of  the  Triple  Alliance." 
Moreover,  the  relations  of  Emperor  and  Chancellor 
were,  at  the  last,  disfigured  by  violent  scenes,  during 
which  the  Kaiser,  according  to  the  testimony  of  every 
one,  showed  the  most  astonishing  dignity  and  re- 
straint. But  it  may  all  be  summed  up  in  the  words 
of  the  Grand  Duke  of  Baden,  reechoed  by  the  Em- 
peror to  Hohenlohe,  it  had  to  be  a  choice  between 
the  dynasties  of  Hohenzollern  and  Bismarck.  The 
end  came  to  such  a  period  of  fear,  agony,  irony, 
despair,  recrimination,  and  catastrophic  laughter  as 
only  the  pen  of  a  Tacitus  could  adequately  describe. 
Bismarck's  last  years,  both  of  power  and  retirement, 
were  those  of  a  lost  soul.  Having  tried  to  intrigue 
with  foreign  Ambassadors  against  his  Sovereign  be- 
fore his  retirement,  he  tried  to  mobilize  the  Press 
against  him  after  he  had  retired,  and  even  stooped 
to  join  hands  with  his  old  rival,  Waldersee,  for  the 
overthrow  of  his  successor,  Capri vi,  being  quite  in- 
different, complained  the  Kaiser  bitterly,  to  what 
might  happen  afterwards.  "It  is  sad  to  think," 
said  the  Emperor  of  Austria  to  Hohenlohe,  "that 
such  a  man  can  sink  so  low." 

When  Bismarck  was  dismissed  every  one  raised 
his  head.  It  seemed  to  Hohenlohe  to  be  at  last  a 
case  of  the  beatitude :  "  the  meek  shall  inherit  the 
earth."  Holstein,  the  Under-Secretary,  who,  to  the 


42 

disgust  of  Bismarck,  refused  to  follow  his  chief  and 
who  now  quietly  made  himself  the  residuary  legatee 
of  the  whole  political  inheritance  of  the  Foreign 
Office,  intended  by  Bismarck  for  his  son,  freely  criti- 
cized his  ex-chief's  policy  in  a  conversation  with 
Hohenlohe : 

"He  adduced  as  errors  of  Bismarck's  policy:  The 
Berlin  Congress,  the  mediation  in  China  in  favor  of 
France,  the  prevention  of  the  conflict  between  England 
and  Kussia  in  Afghanistan,  and  the  whole  of  his 
tracasseries  with  Eussia.  As  to  his  recent  plan  of  leav- 
ing Austria  in  the  lurch,  he  says  we  should  then  have 
made  ourselves  so  contemptible  that  we  should  have  be- 
come isolated  and  dependent  on  Eussia." 

Bismarck,  whom  Hohenlohe  visited  in  his  retire- 
ment, with  a  strange  want  of  patriotism  and  of  per- 
spicuity, pursued  "his  favorite  theme"  and  in- 
veighed against  the  envy  (der  Neid)  of  the  German 
people  and  their  incurable  particularism.  He  never 
divined  how  much  his  jealous  autocracy  had  fostered 
these  tendencies.  One  may  hazard  the  opinion  that 
the  Germans  are  no  more  wanting  in  public  spirit 
and  political  capacity  than  any  other  nation ;  but  if 
they  are  deprived  of  the  rights  of  private  judgment 
and  the  exercise  of  political  ability,  they  are  no  more 
likely  to  be  immune  from  the  corresponding  disabili- 
ties. Certainly,  in  no  country  where  public  men 
are  accustomed  to  the  exercise  of  mutual  tolerance 


German  Diplomacy  and  Statecraft  43 

and  loyal  cooperation  by  the  practise  of  Cabinet  gov- 
ernment, and  where  public  opinion  has  healthy  play, 
would  such  an  exhibition  of  disloyalty  and  slander 
as  is  here  exhibited  be  tolerated,  or  even  possible. 
When  in  1895  Caprivi  succumbed  to  the  intrigues  of 
thei  military  caste  and  the  Agrarian  Party,  Hohen- 
lohe,  now  in  his  seventy-sixth  year,  was  entreated  to 
come  to  the  rescue,  his  accession  being  regarded  as 
the  only  security  for  German  unity.  To  his  eternal 
credit,  Hohenlohe  accepted ;  but,  if  we  may  read  be- 
tween the  lines  of  the  scanty  extracts  here  vouch- 
safed from  the  record  of  a  Ministerial  activity  of 
six  years,  we  may  conjecture  that  it  was  mostly 
labor  and  sorrow.  He  was  opposed  to  agrarianism 
and  repressive  measures,  and  anxious  "  to  get  on 
with  the  Keichstag,"  seeing  in  the  forms  of  public 
discussion  the  only  security  for  the  public  peace. 
But  "  the  Prussian  Junkers  could  not  tolerate  South 
German  Liberalism,"  and  the  most  powerful  political 
caste  in  the  world,  with  the  Army  and  the  King  on 
their  side,  appear  to  have  been  too  much  for  him. 
His  retirement  in  1900  marks  the  end  of  a  fugitive 
attempt  at  something  like  a  liberal  policy  in  Ger- 
many, and  during  the  fourteen  years  which  have 
elapsed  since  that  event  autocracy  has  held  undis- 
puted sway  in  Germany.  The  history  of  these  latter 
years  is  fresh  in  the  minds  of  most  students  of  public 
affairs,  and  we  will  not  attempt  to  pursue  it  here. 


CHAPTER  III 
GERMAN  CULTURE 

THE   ACADEMIC    GABRISON 

NOTHING  is  so  characteristic  of  the  German  nation 
as  its  astonishing  single-mindedness  —  using  that 
term  in  a  mental  and  not  a  moral  sense.  Since  Prus- 
sia established  her  ascendency  the  nation  has  devel- 
oped an  immense  concentration  of  purpose.  If  the 
military  men  are  not  more  belligerent  than  the  di- 
plomatists, the  diplomatists  are  not  more  belligerent 
than  the  professors.  A  single  purpose  seems  to  ani- 
mate them:  it  is  to  proclaim  the  spiritual  efficacy, 
and  the  eternal  necessity,  of  War. 

Already  there  are  signs  that  the  German  professors 
are  taking  the  field.  Their  mobilization  is  appar- 
ently not  yet  complete,  but  we  may  expect  before 
long  to  see  their  whole  force,  from  the  oldest  Pro- 
fessor Emeritus  down  to  the  youngest  Privat-dozent, 
sharpening  their  pens  against  us.  Professors  Har- 
nack,  Haeckel,  and  Eucken  have  already  made  a 
reconnaissance  in  force,  and  in  language  which  might 
have  come  straight  from  the  armory  of  Treitschke 
have  denounced  the  mingled  cupidity  and  hypocrisy 

44 


German  Culture  45 

with  which,  we,  so  they  say,  have  joined  forces  with 
Muscovite  "  barbarism "  against  Teutonic  culture. 
This,  we  may  feel  sure,  is  only  the  beginning. 

German  professors  have  a  way  of  making  history 
as  well  as  writing  it,  and  the  Prussian  Government 
has  always  attached  the  greatest  importance  to  tak- 
ing away  its  enemy's  character  before  it  despoils 
him  of  his  goods.  Long  before  the  wars  of  1866 
and  1870  the  seminars  of  the  Prussian  universities 
were  as  busy  forging  title-deeds  to  the  smaller  Ger- 
man states  and  to  Alsace-Lorraine  as  any  medieval 
scriptorium,  and  not  less  ingenious.  In  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War  the  professors  —  Treitschke,  Momm- 
sen,  Sybel  —  were  the  first  to  take  the  field  and  the 
last  to  quit  it.  Theirs  it  was  to  exploit  the  secular 
hatreds  of  the  past.  Even  Ranke,  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  "  a  good  European "  of  which  German 
schools  of  history  could  boast,  was  implacable. 
When  asked  by  Thiers  on  whom,  the  Third  Empire 
having  fallen,  the  Germans  were  continuing  to  make 
war,  he  replied,  "  On  Louis  XIV." 

Hardly  were  the  results  achieved  before  a  casuistry 
was  developed  to  justify  them.  Sybel's  apologetics 
in  "  Die  Begriindung  des  deutschen  Reichs  "  began 
it ;  others  have  gone  far  beyond  them.  "  Blessed  be 
the  hand  that  traced  those  lines,"  is  Professor  Del- 
briick's  benediction  on  the  forgery  of  the  Ems  tele- 
gram ;  and  in  language  which  is  almost  a  paraphrase 


46      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

of  Bismarck's  cynical  declaration  that  a  diplomatic 
pretext  for  a  war  can  always  be  found  when  you 
want  one,  he  has  laid  it  down  that  "  a  good  diplo- 
mat" should  always  have  his  quiver  full  of  such 
barbed  arrows.  So,  too,  Sybel  on  Frederick's  com- 
plicity in  the  Second  Partition  of  an  inoffensive 
Poland  anticipates  in  almost  so  many  words  the  re- 
cent sophistry  of  the  Imperial  Chancellor  on  the 
violation  of  the  neutrality  of  Belgium.  "Wrong? 
I  grant  you  —  a  violation  of  law  in  the  most  literal 
sense  of  the  word."  But,  he  adds,  necessity  knows 
no  law,  and,  "  to  sum  it  up,"  after  all,  Prussia 
"thereby  gained  a  very  considerable  territory." 
And  thus  Treitschke  on  the  question  of  the  duchies, 
or  again,  to  go  farther  afield,  Mommsen  on  the  in- 
exorable "  law  "  that  the  race  is  always  to  the  swift 
and  the  battle  to  the  strong.  Frederick  the  Great 
surely  knew  his  fellow-countrymen  when  he  said  with 
characteristic  cynicism :  "  I  begin  by  taking ;  I  can 
always  find  pedants  to  prove  my  rights  afterwards." 
Not  the  Chancelleries  only,  but  even  the  General 
Staff  has  worked  hand  in  glove  with  the  lecture- 
room.  When  Bernhardi  and  von  der  Goltz  exalt  the 
spiritual  efficacy  of  war  they  are  repeating  almost 
word  for  word  the  language  of  Treitschke.  Not  a 
faculty  but  ministers  to  German  statecraft  in  its 
turn.  The  economists,  notably  von  Halle  and  Wag- 
ner, have  been  as  busy  and  pragmatical  as  the  his- 


German  Culture  47 

torians  —  theirs  is  the  doctrine  of  Prussian  military 
hegemony  upon  a  basis  of  agrarianism,  of  the  ab- 
sorption of  Holland,  and  of  "  the  future  upon  the 
water."  The  very  vocabulary  of  the  Kaiser's 
speeches  has  been  coined  in  the  lecture-rooms  of 
Berlin  University. 

To  understand  the  potency  of  these  academic  in- 
fluences in  German  policy  one  must  know  something 
of  the  constitution  of  the  German  universities.  In 
no  country  is  the  control  of  the  Government  over 
the  universities  so  strong;  nowhere  is  it  so  vigilant. 
Political  favor  may  make  or  mar  an  academic  career ; 
the  complaisant  professor  is  decorated,  the  contuma- 
cious is  cashiered.  German  academic  history  is  full 
of  examples.  Treitschke,  Sybel,  even  Mommsen  all 
felt  the  weight  of  royal  displeasure  at  one  period  or 
another.  The  present  Emperor  vetoed  the  award  of 
the  Verdun  prize  to  Sybel  because  in  his  history  of 
Prussian  policy  he  had  exalted  Bismarck  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  Hohenzollerns,  and  he  threatened  to 
close  the  archives  to  Treitschke.  Even  Mommsen 
had  at  one  time  to  learn  the  steepness  of  alien  stairs. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  Government  recognizes  so 
readily  the  value  of  a  professor  who  is  docile  —  he 
is  of  more  value  than  many  Pomeranian  Grenadiers. 
Bismarck  invited  Treitschke  to  accompany  the  army 
of  Sadowa  as  a  writer  of  military  bulletins,  and 
both  he  and  Sybel  were,  after  due  caution,  commis- 


48      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

sioned  to  write  those  apologetics  of  Prussian  policy 
which  are  classics  of  their  kind.  Most  German  pro- 
fessors have  at  one  time  or  another  been  publicists, 
and  the  Grenzboten  and  the  Preussische  Jahriicher 
maintain  the  polemical  traditions  of  Sybel's  "  His- 
torische  Zeitschrift."  Moreover,  the  German  uni- 
versity system,  with  the  singular  freedom  in  the 
choice  of  lectures  and  universities,  which  it  leaves 
to  the  student,  tends  to  make  a  professor's  classes 
depend  for  their  success  on  his  power  of  attracting  a 
public  by  trenchant  oratory.  Well  has  Acton  said 
that  the  "  garrison  "  of  distinguished  historians  that 
prepared  the  Prussian  supremacy,  together  with  their 
own,  "  hold  Berlin  like  a  fortress."  They  still  hold 
it  and  their  science  of  fortification  has  not  changed. 
It  ia  not  necessary  to  recapitulate  here  the  earlier 
phases  of  this  politico-historical  school  whose  motto 
found  expression  in  Droysen's  aphorism,  "  The 
statesman  is  the  historian  in  practise,"  and  whose 
moral  was  "  Die  Weltgeschichte  ist  das  Welt- 
gericht,"  or,  to  put  it  less  pretentiously,  "  Nothing 
succeeds  like  success."  All  of  them,  Niebuhr, 
Mommsen,  Droysen,  Hausser,  Sybel,  Treitschke, 
have  this  in  common :  that  they  are  merciless  to  the 
rights  of  small  nationalities.  This  was  no  accident ; 
it  was  due  to  the  magnetism  exercised  upon  their 
minds  by  the  hegemony  of  Prussia  and  by  their 
opposition  to  the  idea  of  a  loose  confederation  of 


German  Culture  49 

small  States.  They  were  almost  equally  united  in 
a  common  detestation  of  France  and  could  find  no 
word  too  hard  for  her  polity,  her  literature,  her 
ideals,  and  her  people.  "  Sodom  "  and  "  Babylon  " 
were  the  best  they  could  spare  her.  "  Die  Nation 
ist  unser  Feind  "  wrote  Treitschke  in  1870,  and  "  we 
must  draw  her  teeth."  Even  Ranke  declared  that 
everything  good  in  Germany  had  risen  by  way  of 
opposition  to  French  influences.  The  intellectual 
war  was  carried  into  every  field  and  epoch  of  his- 
tory, and  all  the  institutions  of  modern  civilization 
were  traced  by  writers  like  Waitz  and  Maurer  to  the 
early  German  tribes  uncorrupted  by  Roman  influ- 
ences. The  same  spirit  was  apparent  in  Sybel's 
hatred  of  the  French  Revolution  and  all  its  works. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  expound  the  intellectual 
revenge  which  French  scholars  like  Fustel  de 
Coulanges  in  the  one  sphere,  and  Albert  Sorel  in  the 
other,  afterwards  took  upon  this  insensate  chauvin- 
ism of  the  chair.  Sufficient  to  say  that  this  cult  of 
war  and  gospel  of  hate  have  narrowed  the  outlook  of 
German  thought  ever  since,  as  Renan  warned  Strauss 
they  would,  and  have  left  Germany  in  an  intellectual 
isolation  from  the  rest  of  Europe  only  to  be  paralleled 
by  her  moral  isolation  of  to-day.  It  was  useless  for 
Renan  to  remind  German  scholars  that  pride  is  the 
only  vice  which  is  punished  in  this  world.  "  We 
Germans,"  retorted  Mommsen,  "  are  not  modest  and 


50      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

don't  pretend  to  be."  The  words  are  almost  the  echo 
of  that  "  thrasonic  brag  "  with  which  Bismarck  one 
day  electrified  the  Reichstag. 

In  the  academic  circles  of  to-day  much  of  the  hate 
formerly  vented  upon  France  is  now  diverted  to  Eng- 
land. In  this/  Treitschke  set  the  fashion.  Noth- 
ing delighted  him  more  than  to  garnish  his  im- 
mensely popular  lectures  with  uproarious  jests  at 
England  — "  the  hypocrite  who,  with  a  Bible  in  one 
hand  and  an  opium  pipe  in  the  other,  scatters  over 
the  universe  the  benefits  of  civilization."  But  there 
was  always  method  in  his>  madness.  Treitschke  was 
one  of  the  first  to  demand  for  Germany  "  a  place  in 
the  sun  " —  this  commonplace  of  Imperial  speeches 
was,  I  believe,  coined  by  Sybel  —  and  to  press  for 
the  creation  of  a  German  Navy  which  should  do 
what  "  Europe "  had  failed  to  do  —  set  bounds  to 
the  crushing  domination  of  the  British  Fleet  and 
"  restore  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Mediterranean 
peoples"  by  snatching  back  Malta,  Corfu,  and 
Gibraltar.  The  seed  fell  on  fruitful  soil.  A  young 
economist,  the  late  Professor  von  Halle,  whose  ve- 
hement lectures  I  used  to  attend  when  a  student  at 
Berlin  University,  worked  out  the  maritime  possi- 
bilities of  German  ambitions  in  "  Volks-und  See- 
wirthschaft,"  and  his  method  is  highly  significant  in 
riew  of  the  recent  ultimatum  delivered  by  Germany 
to  Belgium.  It  was  nothing  less  than  the  seduc- 


German  Culture  51 

tion  of  Holland  by  economic  bribes  into  promising 
to  Germany  the  abandonment  of  the  neutrality  of 
her  ports  in  the  event  of  war.  Thereby,  and  thereby 
alone,  he  argued,  Germany  would  be  reconciled  to 
the  "monstrosity"  (Unding}  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Rhine  being  in  non-German  hands.  In  return  Ger- 
many would  take  Holland  and  her  colonies  under  her 
"protection."  To  the  same  effect  writes  Professor 
Karl  Lamprecht  in  his  "  Zur  jiingsten  deutschen 
Vergangenheit,"  seizing  upon  the  Boer  war  to  demon- 
strate to  Holland  that  England  is  the  enemy.  The 
same  argument  was  put  forward  by  Professor  Lexis. 
This  was  in  the  true  line  of  academic  tradition. 
Even  the  discreet  and  temperate  Ranke  once  coun- 
seled Bismarck  to  annex  Switzerland. 

Such,  in  briefest  outline,  is  the  story  of  the  aca- 
demic "  garrison."  Of  the  lesser  lansquenets,  the 
horde  of  privat-dozents  and  obscurer  professors, 
whose  intellectual  folly  is  only  equaled  by  their 
audacity,  and  who  are  the  mainstay  of  the  Pan-Ger- 
man movement,  I  have  said  nothing.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  second  generation  can  show 
anything  like  the  intellectual  prestige  which,  with 
all  their  intemperance,  distinguished  their  prede- 
cessors. But  they  have  all  laid  to  heart  Treitschke's 
maxim,  "  Be  governmental,"  honor  the  King,  wor- 
ship the  State,  and  "  believe  that  no  salvation  is 
possible  except  by  the  annihilation  of  the  smaller 


52      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

States."  It  is  a  strange  ending  to  the  Germany  of 
Kant  and  Goethe. 

Nur  der  verdient  sich  Freiheit  wie  das  Leben 
Der  taglich  sie  erobern  muss  — 

The  noble  lines  of  Goethe  have  now  a  variant  read- 
ing — "  He  alone  achieves  freedom  and  existence 
who  seeks  to  repeat  his  conquests  at  the  expense  of 
others  "  might  be  the  motto  of  the  Germans  of  to- 
day. But  as  they  have  appealed  to  History,  so  will 
History  answer  them. 


CHAPTER  IV 
GERMAN  THOUGHT 

TEEITSCHKE 

IN  a  pamphlet  of  mordant  irony  addressed  to  "  Mes- 
sieurs les  Ministres  du  culte  evangelique  de  1'armee 
du  roi  de  Prusse  "  in  the  dark  days  of  1870,  Fustel 
de  Coulanges  warned  these  evangelical  camp-fol- 
lowers of  the  consequences  to  German  civilization  of 
their  doctrines  of  a  Holy  War.  "  Your  error  is  not 
a  crime  but  it  makes  you  commit  one,  for  it  leads 
you  to  preach  war  which  is  the  greatest  of  all  crimes." 
It  was  not  impossible,  he  added,  that  that  very  war 
might  be  the  beginning  of  the  decadence  of  Germany, 
even  as  it  would  inaugurate  the  revival  of  France. 
History  has  proved  him  a  true  prophet,  but  it  has 
required  more  than  a  generation  to  show  with  what 
subtlety  the  moral  poison  of  such  teaching  has  pene- 
trated into  German  life  and  character.  The  great 
apostle  of  that  teaching  was  Treitschke  who,  though 
not  indeed  a  theologian,  was  characteristically  fond 
of  praying  in  aid  the  vocabulary  of  theology. 
"  Every  intelligent  theologian  understands  per- 

53 


54      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

fectly  well,"  he  wrote,  "  that  the  Biblical  saying 
'  Thou  shalt  not  kill '  ought  no  more  to  be  interpreted 
literally  than  the  apostolic  injunction  to  give  one's 
goods  to  the  poor."  He  called  in  the  Old  Testament 
to  redress  the  balance  of  the  New.  "  The  doctrines 
of  the  apple  of  discord  and  of  original  sin  are  the 
great  facts  which  the  pages  of  History  everywhere 
reveal." 

To-day,  everybody  talks  of  Treitschke,  though  I 
doubt  if  half  a  dozen  people  in  England  have  read 
him.  His  brilliant  essays,  Historische  und  Politis- 
che  Aufsatze,  illuminating  almost  every  aspect  of 
German  controversy,  have  never  been  translated; 
neither  has  his  Politik,  a  searching  and  cynical  ex- 
amination of  the  foundations  of  Political  Science 
which  exalts  the  State  at  the  expense  of  Society ;  and 
his  Deutsche  Geschichte,  which  was  designed  to  be 
the  supreme  apologetic  of  Prussian  policy,  is  also 
unknown  in  our  tongue.  But  in  Germany  their 
vogue  has  been  and  still  is  enormous;  they  are  to 
Germans  what  Carlyle  and  Macaulay  were  to  us. 
Treitschke,  indeed,  has  much  in  common  with  Car- 
lyle; the  same  contempt  for  Parliaments  and  con- 
stitutional freedom;  the  same  worship  of  the  strong 
man  armed;  the  same  somber,  almost  savage,  irony, 
and,  let  it  not  be  forgotten,  the  same  deep  moral 
fervor.  His  character  was  irreproachable.  At  the 
age  of  fifteen  he  wrote  down  this  motto  for  his  own : 


German  Thought  55 

"  To  be  always  upright,  honest,  moral,  to  become  a 
man,  a  man  useful  to  humanity,  a  brave  man  — 
these  are  my  ambitions."  This  high  ideal  he  strove 
manfully  to  realize.  But  he  was  a  doctrinaire,  and 
of  all  doctrinaires  the  conscientious  doctrinaire  is 
the  most  dangerous.  Undoubtedly,  in  his  case,  as 
in  that  of  so  many  other  enlightened  Germans  — 
Sybel,  for  example  —  his  apostasy  from  Liberalism 
dated  from  the  moment  of  his  conviction  that  the 
only  hope  for  German  unity  lay  not  in  Parliaments 
but  in  the  military  hegemony  of  Prussia.  Tho 
bloody  triumphs  of  the  Austro-Prussian  War  con- 
vinced him  that  the  salvation  of  Germany  was  "  only 
possible  by  the  annihilation  of  small  States,"  that 
States  rest  on  force,  not  consent,  that  success  is  the 
supreme  test  of  merit,  and  that  the  issues  of  war 
are  the  judgment  of  God.  He  was  singularly  free 
from  sophistry  and  never  attempted,  like  Sybel,  to 
defend  the  Ems  telegram  by  the  disingenuous  plea 
that  "  an  abbreviation  is  not  a  falsification " ;  it 
was  enough  for  him  that  the  trick  achieved  its  pur- 
pose. And  he  had  a  frank  contempt  for  those  Prus- 
sian jurists  who  attempted  to  find  a  legal  title  to 
Schleswig-Holstein ;  the  real  truth  of  the  matter 
he  roundly  declared,  was  that  the  annexation  of  the 
duchies  was  necessary  for  the  realization  of  German 
aims.  When  he  writes  about  war  he  writes  without 
any  sanctimonious  cant: 


56      THe  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

It  is  not  for  Germans  to  repeat  the  commonplaces  of 
the  apostles  of  peace  or  of  the  priests  of  Mammon,  nor 
should  they  close  their  eyes  before  the  cruel  necessities 
of  the  age.  Yes,  ours  is  an  epoch  of  war,  our  age  is  an 
age  of  iron.  If  the  strong  get  the  better  of  the  weak, 
it  is  an  inexorable  law  of  life.  Those  wars  of  hunger 
which  we  still  see  to-day  amongst  negro  tribes  are  as 
necessary  for  the  economic  conditions  of  the  heart  of 
Africa  as  the  sacred  war  which  a  people  undertakes  to 
preserve  the  most  precious  belongings  of  its  moral  cul- 
ture. There  as  here  it  is  a  struggle  for  life,  here  for  a 
moral  good,  there  for  a  material  good. 

Readers  of  Bernhardi  will  recognize  here  the 
source  of  Bernhardi's  inspiration.  If  Treitschke 
was  a  casuist  at  all  —  and  as  a  rule  he  is  refresh- 
ingly, if  brutally,  frank  —  his  was  the  supreme 
casuistry  of  the  doctrine  that  the  end  justifies  the 
means.  That  the  means  may  corrupt  the  end  or 
become  an  end  in  themselves  he  never  saw,  or  only 
saw  it  at  the  end  of  his  life.  He  honestly  believed 
that  war  was  the  nurse  of  manly  sentiment  and  heroic 
enterprise,  he  feared  the  commercialism  of  mod- 
ern times,  and  despised  England  because  he  judged 
her  wars  to  have  always  been  undertaken  with  a  view 
to  the  conquest  of  markets.  He  sneers  at  the  Eng- 
lishman who  "  scatters  the  blessings  of  civilization 
with  a  Bible  in  one  hand  and  an  opium  pipe  in  the 
other."  He  honestly  believed  that  Germany  ex- 
hibited a  purity  of  domestic  life,  a  pastoral  sim- 


German  Thought  57 

plieity,  and  a  deep  religious  faith  to  which  no  Euro- 
pean country  could  approach,  and  at  the  time  he 
wrote  the  picture  was  not  overdrawn.  He  has  writ- 
ten passages  of  noble  and  tender  sentiment,  in  which 
he  celebrates  the  piety  of  the  peasant,  whose  religious 
exercises  were  hallowed,  wherever  the  German  tongue 
was  spoken,  by  the  massive  faith  of  Luther's  great 
Hymn.  Writing  of  German  Protestantism  as  the 
corner-stone  of  German  unity,  he  says: 

Everywhere  it  has  been  the  solid  rampart  of  our 
language  and  customs.  In  Alsace,  as  in  the  mountains 
of  Transylvania  and  on  the  distant  shores  of  the  Baltic, 
as  long  as  the  peasant  shall  sing  his  old  canticle 

Em'  feste  Burg  ist  unser  Gott 
German  life  shall  not  pass  away. 

Those  who  would  understand  the^strength  of  Treits- 
chke's  influence  on  his  generation  must  not  lose  sight 
of  these  purer  elements  in  his  teaching. 

But  Treitschke  was  dazzled  by  the  military  suc- 
cesses of  Prussia  in  1866.  With  that  violent  reac- 
tion against  culture  which  is  so  common  among  its 
professional  devotees,  and  which  often  makes  the  men 
of  the  pen  far  more  sanguinary  than  the  men  of  the 
sword,  he  derided  the  old  Germany  of  Goethe  and 
Kant  as  "  a  nation  of  poets  and  thinkers  without  a 
polity"  ("Ein  staatloses  Volk  von  Dichtern  und 
Denkern  "),  and  almost  despised  his  own  intellectual 
vocation.  "  Each  dragoon,"  he  cried  enviously, 


58      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

"  who  knocks  a  Croat  on  the  head  does  far  more  for 
the  German  cause  than  the  finest  political  brain  that 
ever  wielded  a  trenchant  pen."  But  for  his  griev- 
ous deafness  he  would,  like  his  father,  have  chosen 
the  profession  of  arms.  Failing  that,  he  chose  to 
teach.  "  It  is  a  fine  thing,"  he  wrote,  "  to  be  mas- 
ter of  the  younger  generation,"  and  he  set  himself  to 
indoctrinate  it  with  the  aim  of  German  unity.  He 
taught  from  1859  to  1875  successively  at  Leipzig, 
Freiburg,  Kiel,  and  Heidelberg.  From  18Y5  till  his 
death  in  1896  he  occupied  with  immense  eclat  the 
chair  of  modern  history  at  Berlin.  And  so,  al- 
though a  Saxon,  he  enlisted  his  pen  in  the  service 
of  Prussia  —  Prussia  which  always  knows  how  to 
attract  men  of  ideas  but  rarely  produces  them.  In 
the  great  roll  of  German  statesmen  and  thinkers  and 
poets  —  Stein,  Hardenberg,  Goethe,  Hegel  —  you 
will  look  almost  in  vain  for  one  who  is  of  Prussian 
birth.  She  may  pervert  them;  she  cannot  create 
them. 

Treitschke's  views  were,  of  course,  shared  by  many 
of  his  contemporaries.  The  Seminars  of  the  Ger- 
man Universities  were  the  arsenals  that  forged  the 
intellectual  weapons  of  the*  Prussian  hegemony. 
Niebuhr,  Ranke,  Mommsen,  Sybel,  Hausser,  Droy- 
sen,  Gneist  —  all  ministered  to  that  ascendency, 
and  they  all  have  this  in  common  —  that  they  are 
merciless  to  the  claims  of  the  small  States  whose 


German  Thought  59 

existence  seemed  to  present  an  obstacle  to  Prussian 
aims.  They  are  also  united  in  common  hatred  of 
France,  for  they  feared  not  only  the  adventures  of 
Napoleon  the  Third  but  the  leveling  doctrines  of 
the  French  Revolution.  Burke's  Letters  on  a  Regi- 
cide Peace  are  not  more  violent  against  France  than 
the  writings  of  Sybel,  Mommsen,  and  Treitschke. 
What,  however,  distinguishes  Treitschke  from  his  in- 
tellectual confreres  is  his  thoroughness.  They  made 
reservations  which  he  scorned  to  make.  Sybel,  for 
example,  is  often  apologetic  when  he  comes  to  the 
more  questionable  episodes  in  Prussian  policy  — 
the  partition  of  Poland,  the  affairs  of  the  duchies, 
the  Treaty  of  Bale,  the  diplomacy  of  1870;  Treits- 
chke is  disturbed  by  no  such  qualms.  Bismarck 
who  practised  a  certain  economy  in  giving  Sybel  ac- 
cess to  official  documents  for  his  semi-official  history 
of  Prussian  policy,  Die  Begrilndung  des  deutschen 
Reichsf  had  much  greater  confidence  in  Treitschke 
and  told  him  he  felt  sure  he  would  not  be  disturbed 
to  find  that  "our  political  linen  is  not  as  white  as 
it  might  be."  So,  too,  while  others  like  Mommsen 
refused  to  go  the  whole  way  with  Bismarck  in  do- 
mestic policy,  and  clung  to  their  early  Radicalism, 
Treitschke  had  no  compunction  about  absolutism. 
He  ended,  indeed,  by  becoming  the  champion  of  the 
Junkers,  and  his  history  is  a  kind  of  hagiography 
of  the  Hohenzollerns.  "  Be  governmental "  was  his 


60      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

succinct  maxim,  and  he  rested  his  hopes  for  Ger- 
many on  the  bureaucracy  and  the  army.  Indeed,  if 
he  had  had  his  way,  he  would  have  substituted  a 
unity  state  for  the  federal  system  of  the  German 
Empire,  and  would  have  liked  to  see  all  Germany  an 
enlarged  Prussia  — "  ein  erweitertes  Preussen  " —  a 
view  which  is  somewhat  difficult  to  reconcile  with  his 
attacks  on  France  as  being  "  politically  in  a  state  of 
perpetual  nonage,"  and  on  the  French  Government 
as  hostile  to  all  forms  of  provincial  autonomy. 

By  a  quite  natural  transition  he  was  led  on  from 
his  championship  of  the  unity  of  Germany  to  a  con- 
ception of  her  role  as  a  world-power.  He  is  the  true 
father  of  Weltpolitik.  Much  of  what  he  writes  on 
this  head  is  legitimate  enough.  Like  Hohenlohe  and 
Bismarck  he  felt  the  humiliation  of  Germany's  weak- 
ness in  the  councils  of  Europa  Writing  in  1863 
he  complains: 

One  thing  we  still  lack  —  the  State.  Our  people  is 
the  only  one  which  has  no  common  legislation,  which  can 
send  no  representatives  to  the  Concert  of  Europe.  No 
salute  greets  the  German  flag  in  a  foreign  port.  Our 
Fatherland  sails  the  high  seas  without  colors  like  a  pi- 
rate. 

Germany,  he  declared,  must  become  "  a  power 
across  the  sea."  This  conclusion,  coupled  with  bitter 
recollections  of  the  part  played  by  England  in  the 


German  Thought  61 

affair  of  the  Duchies,  no  doubt  accounted  for  his 
growing  dislike  of  England. 

Among  the  English  the  love  of  money  has  killed  every 
sentiment  of  honor  and  every  distinction  between  what 
is  just  and  unjust.  They  hide  their  poltroonery  and 
their  materialism  behind  grand  phrases  of  unctuous 
theology.  When  one  sees  the  English  press  raising  its 
eyes  to  heaven,  frightened  by  the  audacity  of  these  faith- 
less peoples  in  arms  upon  the  Continent,  one  might  im- 
agine one  heard  a  venerable  parson  droning  away.  As 
if  the  Almighty  God,  in  Whose  name  Cromwell's  Iron- 
sides fought  their  battles,  commanded  us  Germans  to 
allow  our  enemy  to  march  undisturbed  upon  Berlin. 
Oh,  what  hypocrisy!  Oh,  cant,  cant,  cant! 

Europe,  he  says  elsewhere,  should  have  put  bounds 
to  the  overweening  ambition  of  Britain  by  bringing 
to  an  end  the  crushing  domination  of  the  English 
Fleet  at  Gibraltar,  at  Malta,  and  at  Corfu,  and  by 
"  restoring  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Mediterranean 
peoples."  Thus  did  he  sow  the  seeds  of  German 
maritime  ambition. 

If  I  were  asked  to  select  the  most  characteristic  of 
Treitschke's  works  I  should  be  inclined  to  choose 
the  vehement  little  pamphlet  Was  fordern  wir  von 
Frankreich?  in  which  he  insisted  on  the  annexation 
of  Alsace-Lorraine.  It  is  at  once  the  vindication  of 
Prussian  policy,  -and,  in  the  light  of  the  last  forty- 
four  years,  its  c6ndemnation.  Like  Mommsen,  who 
wrote  in  much  the  same  strain  at  the  same  time,  he 


62      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

insisted  that  the  people  of  the  conquered  provinces 
must  be  "  forced  to  be  free,"  that  Morality  and  His- 
tory (which  for  him  are  much  the  same  thing) 
proclaim  they  are  German  without  knowing  it. 

We  Germans,  who  know  Germany  and  France,  know 
better  what  is  good  for  Alsace  than  the  unhappy  people 
themselves,  who  through  their  French  associations  have 
lived  in  ignorance  of  the  new  Germany.  We  will  give 
them  back  their  own  identity  against  their  will.  We 
have  in  the  enormous  changes  of  these  times  too  often 
seen  in  glad  astonishment  the  immortal  working  of  the 
moral  forces  of  History  ("  dasunsterbliche  Fortwirkung 
der  sittlichen  Machte  der  Geschichte  ")  to  be  able  to  be- 
lieve in  the  unconditional  value  of  a  plebiscite  on  this 
matter.  We  invoke  the  men  of  the  past  against  the 
present. 

The  ruthless  pedantry  of  this  is  characteristically 
Prussian.  It  is  easy  to  appeal  to  the  past  against 
the  present,  to  the  dead  against  the  living.  Dead 
men  tell  no  tales.  It  was,  he  admitted,  true  that  the 
Alsatians  did  not  love  the  Germans.  These  "  mis- 
guided people  "  betrayed  "  that  fatal  impulse  of  Ger- 
mans "  to  cleave  to  other  nations  than  their  own. 
"Well  may  we  Germans  be  horrified,"  he  adds, 
"  when  to-day  we  see  these  German  people  rail  in 
German  speech  like  wild  beasts  against  their  own 
flesh  and  blood  as  '  German  curs'  ('deutschen 
Hunde  ')  and  '  stink-Prussians  '  ('  Stinkpreussen  ')." 
Treitschke  was  too  honest  to  deny  it.  There  was,  he 


German  Thought  63 

ruefully  admitted,  something  rather  unlovely  about 
the  "  civilizing  "  methods  of  Prussia.  "  Prussia  has 
perhaps  not  always  been  guided  by  genial  men." 
But,  he  argued,  Prussia  united  under  the  new  Em- 
pire to  the  rest  of  Germany  would  become  humanized 
and  would  in  turn  humanize  the  new  subject-peoples. 
Well,  the  forty-four  years  that  have  elapsed  since 
Treitschke  wrote  have  refuted  him.  Instead  of  a 
Germanized  Prussia,  we  see  a  Prussianized  Ger- 
many. Her  "  geniality  "  is  the  geniality  of  Zabern. 
The  Poles,  the  Danes,  and  the  Alsatians  are  still  con- 
tumacious. Treitschke  appealed  to  History  and  His- 
tory has  answered  him. 

Had  he  never  any  misgivings?  Yes.  After 
twenty-five  years,  and  within  a  month  of  his  death, 
this  Hebrew  prophet  looking  round  in  the  year  of 
grace  1895  on  the  "culture"  of  modern  Germany 
was  filled  with  apprehension.  On  the  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  of  Sedan  he  delivered  an  address  in  the 
University  of  Berlin  which  struck  his  fond  disciples 
dumb.  The  Empire,  he  declared,  had  disarmed  her 
enemies  neither  without  nor  within. 

In  every  direction  our  ntanners  have  deteriorated. 
The  respect  which  Goethe  declared  to  be  the  true  end  of 
all  moral  education  disappears  in  the  new  generation 
with  a  giddy  rapidity:  respect  of  God,  respect  for  the 
limits  which  nature  and  society  have  placed  between  the 
two  sexes;  respect  for  the  Fatherland,  which  is  every 


64      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

day  disappearing  before  the  will-of-the-wisp  of  an  in- 
dulgent humanity.  The  more  culture  extends,  the  more 
insipid  it  becomes;  men  despise  the  profundity  of  the 
ancient  world  and  consider  only  that  which  subserves 
their  immediate  end. 

The  things  of  the  mind,  he  cried,  had  lost  their 
hold  on  the  German  people.  Every  one  was  eager 
to  get  rich  and  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  a  vain  ex- 
istence by  the  cult  of  idle  and  meretricious  pleas- 
ures. The  signs  of  the  times  were  everywhere  dark 
and  gloomy.  The  new  Emperor  (William  the  Sec- 
ond), he  had  already  hinted,  was  a  dangerous  char- 
latan. 

The  wheel  had  come  full  circle.  Fustel  de 
Coulanges  was  justified  of  his  prophecy.  And  the 
handwriting  on  the  walls  of  Destiny  was  never  more 
legible  than  now. 


CONCLUSION 

THE  contemplation  of  History,  so  a  great  master  of 
the  art  has  told  us,  may  not  make  men  wise  but  it  is 
sure  to  make  them  sad.  The  austere  Muse  has  never 
had  a  sadder  page  to  show  than  that  which  is  even 
now  being  added  to  her  record.  We  see  now  the 
full  fruition  of  the  German  doctrine  of  the  beatitude 
of  War.  In  sorrow  and  in  anguish,  in  anguish  and 
in  darkness,  Belgium  is  weeping  for  her  children 
and  will  not  be  comforted  because  they  are  not.  The 
invader  has  spared  neither  age  nor  sex,  neither  rank 
nor  function,  and  every  insult  that  malice  could  in- 
vent, or  insolence  inspire,  has  been  heaped  upon 
her  bowed  head.  The  hearths  are  cold,  the  altars 
desecrated,  the  fields  untilled,  the  granaries  empty. 
The  peasant  watches  the  heavens  but  he  may  not 
sow,  he  has  regarded  his  fields  but  he  might  not  reap. 
The  very  stones  in  her  cities  cry  out ;  hardly  one  of 
them  is  left  upon  another.  No  nation  had  ever  given 
Europe  more  blithe  and  winning  pledges  of  her  de- 
votion to  the  arts  of  peace.  The  Flemish  school  of 
painters  had  endowed  the  world  with  portraits  of  a 
grave  tenderness  which  posterity  might  always  ad- 
mire but  could  never  imitate.  The  chisels  of  her 

65 


66      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

medieval  craftsmen  had  left  us  a  legacy  of  buoyant 
fancy  in  stone  whose  characters  were  alive  for  us 
with  the  animation  of  the  Canterbury  Tales.  All 
this  the  invader  has  stamped  out  like  the  plague.  A 
once  busy  and  thriving  community  begs  its  bread  in 
alien  lands.  Never  since  the  captivity  of  Babylon 
has  there  been  so  tragic  an  expatriation.  Yet  noble 
in  her  sorrow  and  exalted  in  her  anguish,  Belgium, 
like  some  patient  caryatid,  still  supports  the  broken 
architrave  of  the  violated  Treaty.  Her  little  army 
is  still  unconquered,  her  spirit  is  never  crushed.  She 
will  arise  purified  by  her  sorrow  and  ennobled  by 
her  suffering,  and  generations  yet  unborn  shall  rise 
up  to  call  her  blessed. 


THE  WAR  BOOK  OF  THE 
GERMAN  GENERAL  STAFF 

INTRODUCTION 

THE  armies  of  belligerent  States  on  the  outbreak  of  what  is  a 
hostilities,  or  indeed  the  moment  war  is  declared, 
enter  into  a  certain  relation  with  one  another  which 
is  known  by  the  name  of  "  A  State  of  War."  This 
relationship,  which  at  the  beginning  only  concerns 
the  members  of  the  two  armies,  is  extended,  the  mo- 
ment the  frontier  is  crossed,  to  all  inhabitants  of 
the  enemy's  State,  so  far  as  its  territory  is  occupied ; 
indeed  it  extends  itself  ultimately  to  both  the  mov- 
able and  immovable  property  of  the  State  and  its 
citizens. 

A  distinction  is  drawn  between  an  "  active  "  and  a  Active 
"  passive  "  state  of  war.     By  the  first  is  to  be  under-  Passive, 
stood  the  relation  to  one  another  of  the  actual  fight- 
ing organs  of  the  two  belligerents,  that  is  to  say,  of 
the  persons  forming  the  army,  besides  that  of  the 
representative  heads  of  the  State  and  of  the  lead- 
ers.    By  the  second  term,  i.e.,  the  "  passive  "  state 
of  war,  on  the  other  hand,  is  to  be  understood  the 
relationship  of  the  hostile  army  to  those  inhabitants 
of  the  State,  who  share  in  the  actual  conduct  of  war 

only  in  consequence  of  their  natural  association  with 

67 


68       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

the  army  of  their  own  State,  and  who  on  that  ac- 
count are  only  to  be  regarded  as  enemies  in  a  passive 
sense.  As  occupying  an  intermediate  position,  one 
has  often  to  take  into  account  a  number  of  persons 
who  while  belonging  to  the  army  do  not  actually  par- 
ticipate in  the  conduct  of  hostilities  but  continue  in 
the  field  to  pursue  what  is  to  some  extent  a  peaceful 
occupation,  such  as  Army  Chaplains,  Doctors,  Medi- 
cal Officers  of  Health,  Hospital  Nurses,  Voluntary 
Nurses,  and  other  Officials,  Sutlers,  Contractors, 
Newspaper  Correspondents  and  the  like. 

Now  although  according  to  the  modern  conception 
of  war,  it  is  primarily  concerned  with  the  persons 
belonging  to  the  opposing  armies,  yet  no  citizen  or 
inhabitant  of  a  State  occupied  by  a  hostile  army  can 
altogether  escape  the  burdens,  restrictions,  sacrifices, 
and  inconveniences  which  are  the  natural  consequence 
of  a  State  of  War.  A  war  conducted  with  energy 
cannot  be  directed  merely  against  the  combatants  of 
the  Enemy  State  and  the  positions  they  occupy,  but 
it  will  and  must  in  like  manner  seek  to  destroy  the 
total  intellectual  *  and  material  resources  of  the  lat- 
ter.2 Humanitarian  claims  sijch.  as  the  protection 

1  [The  word  used  is  "  geistig,"  as  to  the  exact  meaning  of 
which  see  translator's  footnote  to  page  72.    What  the  passage 
amounts  to  is  that  the  belligerent  should  seek  to  break  the 
spirit  of  the  civil  population,  terrorize  them,  humiliate  them, 
and  reduce  them  to  despair. —  J.  H.  M.] 

2  Moltke,  in  his  well-known  correspondence  with  Professor 


Introduction  69 

of  TT.PH  and  their  goods  can  orvlv  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration in  so  far  as  the  nature  and  object  of  the 
war  permit. 

Consequently  the  "  argument  of  war "  permits  The  usages 
every  belligerent  State  to  have  recourse  to  all  means 
which  enable  it  to  attain  the  object  of  the  war ;  still, 
practise  has  taught  the  advisability  of  allowing  in 
one's  own  interest  the  introduction  of  a  limitation 
in  the  use  of  certain  methods  of  war  and  a  total  re- 
nunciation of  the  use  of  others.  Chivalrous  feel- 
ings, Christian  thought,  higher  civilization  and,  by 
no  means  least  of  all,  the  recognition  of  one's  own 
advantage,  have  led  to  a  voluntary  and  self-imposed 
limitation,  the  necessity  of  which  is  to-day  tacitly 
recognized  by  all  States  and  their  armies.  They 
have  led  in  the  course  of  time,  in  the  simple  trans- 
mission of  knightly  usage  in  the  passages  of  arms, 
to  a  series  of  agreements,  hallowed  by  tradition,  and 
we  are  accustomed  to  sum  these  up  in  the  words 
"  usage  of  war  "  (Kriegsbrauch),  "  custom  of  war  " 
(Kriegssitte),  "  or  fashion  of  war  "  (Kriegsmanier). 
Customs  of  this  kind  have  always  existed,  even  in  the 

Bluntschli,  is  moved  to  denounce  the  St.  Petersburg  Conven- 
-  tion  which  designs  as  "  le  seul  but  Mgitime  "  of  waging  war, 
"  I'affaiblissement  des  forces  militaires,"  and  this  he  denies 
most  energetically  on  the  ground  that,  on  the  contrary,  all 
the  resources  of  the  enemy,  country,  finances,  railways,  means 
of  subsistence,  even  the  prestige  of  the  enemy's  government, 
ought  to  be  attacked.  [This,  of  course,  means  the  policy  of 
"  Terrorismus,"  i.e..  terrorization. —  J.  H.  M.]  •/ 

-     •   *       ^  &  k  4fc 


70      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

times  of  antiquity;  they  differed  according  to  the 
civilization  of  the  different  nations  and  their  public 
C3onomy,  they  were  not  always  identical,  even  in  one 
and  the  same  conflict,  and  they  have  in  the  course 
of  time  often  changed ;  they  are  older  than  any  scien- 
tific law  of  war,  they  have  come  down  to  us  un- 
written, and  moreover  they  maintain  themselves  in 
full  vitality;  they  have  therefore  won  an  assured 
position  in  standing  armies  according  as  these  latter 
have  been  introduced  into  ih»  systems  of  almost 
every  European  State. 

The  fact  that  such  limitations  of  the  unrestricted 
and  reckless  application  of  all  the  available  means 
for  the  conduct  of  war,  and  thereby  the  humanization 
of  the  customary  methods  of  pursuing  war  really 
exist,  and  are  actually  observed  by  the  armies  of  all 
civilized  States,  has  in  the  course  of  the  nineteenth 
century  often  led  to  attempts  to  develop,  to  extend, 
and  thus  to  make  universally  binding  these  pre- 
existing usages  of  war;  to  elevate  them  to  the  level 
of  laws  binding  nations  and  armies,  in  other  words  to 
create  a  codex  belli;  a  law  of  war.  All  these  attempts 
have  hitherto,  with  some  few  exceptions  to  be  men- 
tioned later,  completely  failed.  If,  therefore,  in  the 
following  work  the  expression  "  the  law  of  war  "  is 
used,  it  must  be  understood  that  by  it  is  meant  not  a 
lex  scripta  introduced  by  international  agreements; 
but  only  a  reciprocity  of  mutual  agreement ;  a  limita- 


Introduction  71 

tion  of  arbitrary  behavior,  which,  custom  and  con- 
ventionality, human  friendliness  and  a  calculating 
egotism  have  erected,  but  for  the  observance  of  which 
there  exists  no  express  sanction,  but  only  "  the  fear 
of  reprisals  "  decides. 

Consequently  the  usage  of  war  is  even  now  the  only  The  -  flabby 

?  .  '  ,,.  „  emotion"    of 

means  01  regulating  the  relations  01  belligerent  states  Humamta- 

rlanism. 

to  one  another.  But  with  the  idea  of  the  usages  of 
war  will  always  be  bound  up  the  character  of  some- 
thing transitory,  inconstant,  something  dependent 
on  factors  outside  the  army.  Nowadays  it  is  not 
only  the  army  which  influences  the  spirit  of  the  cus- 
toms of  war  and  assures  recognition  of  its  unwritten 
laws.  Since  the  almost  universal  introduction  of 
conscription,  the  peoples  themselves  exercise  a  pro- 
found influence  upon  this  spirit.  In  the  modern 
usages  of  war  one  can  no  longer  regard  merely  the 
traditional  inheritance  of  the  ancient  etiquette  of 
the  profession  of  arms,  and  the  professional  outlook 
accompanying  it,  but  there  is  also  the  deposit  of  the 
currents  of  thought  which  agitate  our  time.  But 
since  the  tendency  of  thought  of  the  last  century  was 
dominated  essentially  by  humanitarian  considera- 
tions which  not  infrequently  degenerated  into  senti- 
mentality and  flabby  emotion  (Sentimentalitat  und 
weichlicher  Gefuhlschwarmerei)  there  have  not  been 
wanting  attempts  to  influence  the  development  of 
the  usages  of  war  in  a  way  which  was  in  fundamental 


72      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

contradiction  with  the  nature  of  war  and  its  object. 
Attempts  of  this  kind  will  also  not  be  wanting  in 
the  future,  the  more  so  as  these  agitations  have  found 
a  kind  of  moral  recognition  in  some  provisions  of  the 
Geneva  Convention  and  the  Brussels  and  Hague  Con- 
ferences. 

Moreover  the  officer  is  a  child  of  his  time.  He  is 
subject  to  the  intellectual  3  tendencies  which  influ- 
ence his  own  nation;  the  more  educated  he  is  the 
more  will  this  be  the  case.  The  danger  that,  in  this 
way,  he  will  arrive  at  false  views  about  the  essential 
character  of  war  must  not  be  lost  sight  of.  The  dan- 
ger can  only  be  met  by  a  thorough  study  of  war  it- 
self. By  steeping  himself  in  military  history  an 
officer  will  be  able  to  guard  himself  against  excessive 
humanitarian  notions,  it  will  teach  him  that  certain 
severities  are  indispensable  to  war,  nay  more,  that 
the  only  true  humanity  very  often  lies  in  a  ruthless 
application  of  them.  It  will  also  teach  him  how  the 
rules  of  belligerent  intercourse  in  war  have  devel- 
oped, how  in  the  course  of  time  they  have  solidified 
into  general  usages  of  war,  and  finally  it  will  teach 
him  whether  the  governing  usages  of  war  are  justi- 
fied or  not,  whether  they  are  to  be  modified  or 
whether  they  are  to  be  observed.  But  for  a  study 

[s  "  Den  geistigen  Stromungen."  "  Intellectual  "  is  the  near- 
est equivalent  in  English,  but  it  barely  conveys  the  spiritual 
aureole  surrounding  the  word. —  J.  H.  M.] 


Introduction  73 

of  military  history  in  this  light,  knowledge  of  the 
fundamental  conceptions  of  modern  international 
and  military  movements  is  certainly  necessary.  To 
present  this  is  the  main  purpose  of  the  following 
work. 


PAKT  I 

THE  USAGES  OF  WAE  IN  EEGAED  TO  THE  HOSTILE  AEMY 

CHAPTER  I 

WHO    BELONGS    TO    THE    HOSTILE    AEMY  ? 

SINCE  the  subjects  of  enemy  States  have  quite  dif-  who  are 

,  ,.  Combatants 

ferent  rights  and  duties  according  as  they  occupy  an  and  who  are 

active  or  a  passive  position,  the  question  arises :    Who 

is  to  be  recognized  as  occupying  the  active  position,  or 

what  amounts  to  the  same  thing  —  Who  belongs  to 

the  hostile  army?     This  is  a  question  of  particular 

importance. 

According  to  the  universal  usages  of  war,  the  fol- 
lowing are  to  be  regarded  as  occupying  an  active 
position : 

1.  The  heads  of  the  enemy's  state  and  its  ministers, 

even  though  they  possess  no  military  rank. 

2.  The  regular  army,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  indiffer- 

ence whether  the  army  is  recruited  voluntarily  or 
by  conscription;  whether  the  army  consists  of 
subjects  or  aliens  (mercenaries) ;  whether  it  is 
brought  together  out  of  elements  which  were 
already  in  the  service  in  time  of  peace,  or  out  of 
such  as  are  enrolled  at  the  moment  of  mobiliza- 
75 


76      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

tion  (militia,  reserve,  national  guard  and  Land- 
sturm). 

3.  Subject  to  certain  assumptions,  irregular  com- 
batants, also,  i.e.,  such  as  are  not  constituent 
parts  of  the  regular  army,  but  have  only  taken 
up  arms  for  the  length  of  the  war,  or,  indeed, 
for  a  particular  task  of  the  war. 

Only  the  third  class  of  persons  need  be  more 
closely  considered.  In  their  case  the  question  how 
far  the  rights  of  an  active  position  are  to  be  con- 
ceded to  them  has  at  all  times  been  matter  of  con- 
troversy, and  the  treatment  of  irregular  troops  has 
in  consequence  varied  considerably.  Generally 
speaking  the  study  of  military  history  leads  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  Commanding  Officers  of  regular 
armies  were  always  inclined  to  regard  irregular 
troops  of  the  enemy  with  distrust,  and  to  apply  to 
them  the  contemporary  laws  of  war  with  peculiar 
severity.  This  unfavorable  prejudice  is  based  on 
the  ground  that  the  want  of  a  military  education  and 
of  stern  discipline  among  irregular  troops,  easily 
leads  to  transgressions  and  to  non-observance  of  the 
usages  of  war,  and  that  the  minor  skirmishes  which 
they  prefer  to  indulge  in,  and  which  by  their  very 
nature  lead  to  individual  enterprise,  open  the  door 
to  irregularity  and  savagery,  and  easily  deteriorate 
into  robbery  and  unauthorized  violence,  so  that  in 
every  case  the  general  insecurity  which  it  develops 


The  Hostile  Army  77 

engenders  bitterness,  fury,  and  revengeful  feelings 
in  the  harassed  troops,  and  leads  to  cruel  reprisals. 
Let  any  one  read  the  combats  of  the  French  troops 
in  the  Spanish  Peninsula  in  the  years  1808  to  1814, 
in  Tyrol  in  1809,  in  Germany  in  1813,  and  also 
those  of  the  English  in  their  different  Colonial  wars, 
or  again  the  Carlist  Wars,  the  Russo-Turkish  War, 
and  the  Franco-Prussian  War,1  and  one  will  every- 
where find  this  experience  confirmed. 

If  these  points  of  view  are  on  the  whole  decisive  Each  state 
against  the  employment  of  irregular  troops,  yet  on  fontseif. 
the  other  hand,  it  must  be  left  to  each  particular 
State  to  determine  how  far  it  will  disregard  such 
considerations;  from  the  point  of  view  of  interna- 
tional law  no  State  is  compelled  to  limit  the  instru- 
ments of  its  military  operations  to  the  standing 
army.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  completely  justified 
in  drawing  upon  all  the  inhabitants  capable  of  bear- 
ing arms,  entirely  according  to  its  discretion,  and  in 
imparting  to  them  an  authorization  to  participate  in 
the  war. 

This  public  authorization  has  therefore  been  until  The  neces- 
sity of  Au- 

quite  recently  regarded  as  the  presumed  necessary  thorization. 
condition  of  any  recognition  of  combatant  rights. 

Of  course  there  are  numerous  examples  in  military  Exceptions 

..  .,.,.  ,  ,  .  .  which  prove 

history   in  which   irregular  combatants  have  been  the  rule. 

i  [The  General  Staff  always  refers  to  the  war  of  1870  as  "  the 
German-French  War."— J.  H.  M.] 


78      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

recognized  as  combatants  by  the  enemy,  without  any 
public  authorization  of  the  kind;  thus  in  the  latest 
wars  of  North  America,  Switzerland,  and  Italy,  and 
also  in  the  case  of  the  campaign  (without  any  kind 
of  commission  from  a  State)  of  Garibaldi  against 
Naples  and  Sicily  in  the  year  1860.  But  in  all  these 
cases  the  tacitly  conceded  recognition  originated  not 
out  of  any  obligatory  principles  of  international  law 
or  of  military  usage,  but  simply  and  solely  out  of 
the  fear  of  reprisals.  The  power  to  prevent  the  en- 
trance on  the  scene  of  these  irregular  partizans  did 
not  exist,  and  it  was  feared  that  by  not  recognizing 
their  quality  as  combatants  the  war  a  cruel  character 
might  be  given,  and  consequently  that  more  harm 
than  good  might  result  to  the  parties  themselves. 
On  the  other  hand  there  has  always  been  a  universal 
consensus  of  opinion  against  recognizing  irregulars 
who  make  their  appearance  individually  or  in  small 
bands,  and  who  conduct  war  in  some  measure  on 
their  own  account  (auf  eigene  Faust)  detached 
from  the  army,  and  such  opinion  approves  of  the  pun- 
ishment of  these  offenders  with  death. 

This  legal  attitude  which  denies  every  unauthor- 
ized rising  and  identifies  it  with  brigandage  was 
taken  up  by  the  revolutionary  armies  of  France  to- 
wards the  insurrection  in  La  Vendee,  and  again  by 
Napoleon  in  his  proceedings  against  Schill  and 
Db'rnberg  in  the  year  1809,  and  again  by  Welling- 


The  Hostile  Army  79 

ton,  Schwarzenberg,  and  Bliicher,  in  the  Proclama- 
tions issued  by  them  in  France  in  the  year  1814, 
and  the  German  Army  adopted  the  same  standpoint 
in  the  year  1870-71,  when  it  demanded  that: 
"  Every  prisoner  who  wishes  to  be  treated  as  a  pris- 
oner of  war  must  produce  a  certificate  as  to  his  char- 
acter as  a  French  soldier,  issued  by  the  legal  authori- 
ties, and  addressed  to  him  personally,  to  the  effect 
that  he  has  been  called  to  the  Colors  and  is  borne  on 
the  Roll  of  a  corps  organized  on  a  military  footing 
by  the  French  Government." 

In  the  controversies  which  have  arisen  since  the  Modem 
war  of  1870-71  over  the  different  questions  of  inter- 
national law  and  the  laws  of  war,  decisive  emphasis 
has  no  longer  been  placed  upon  the  question  of  pub- 
lic authorization,  and  it  has  been  proposed,  on 
grounds  of  expediency,  to  recognize  as  combatants 
such  irregulars  as  are  indeed  without  an  express 
and  immediate  public  authorization,  but  who  are 
organized  in  military  fashion  and  are  under  a  re- 
sponsible leader.  The  view  here  taken  was  that  by 
a  recognition  of  these  kind  of  irregular  troops  the 
dangers  and  horrors  of  war  would  be  diminished, 
and  that  a  substitute  for  the  legal  authorization  lack- 
ing in  the  case  of  individuals  offers  itself  in  the  mili- 
tary organization  and  in  the  existence  of  a  leader 
responsible  to  his  own  State. 

Moreover  the  Brussels  Declaration  of  August  27, 


80      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

1874,  and  in  consonance  with  it  the  Manual  of  the 
Institute  of  International  Law,  desire  as  the  first 
condition  of  recognition  as  combatants  "that  they 
have  at  their  head  a  personality  who  is  responsible 
for  the  behavior  of  those  under  him  to  his  own  Gov- 
ernment." 2 

Considered  from  the  military  point  of  view  there 
is  not  much  objection  to  the  omission  of  the  demand 
for  public  authorization,  so  soon  as  it  becomes  a 
question  of  organized  detachments  of  troops,  but  in 
the  case  of  hostile  individuals  who  appear  on  the 
scene  we  shall  none  the  less  be  unable  to  dispense 
with  the  certificate  of  membership  of  an  organized 
band,  if  such  individuals  are  to  be  regarded  and 
treated  as  lawful  belligerents. 

But  the  organization  of  irregulars  in  military 
bands  and  their  subjection  to  a  responsible  leader 
are  not  by  themselves  sufficient  to  enable  one  to 
grant  them  the  status  of  belligerents ;  even  more  im- 
portant than  these  is  the  necessity  of  being  able  to 
recognize  them  as  such  and  of  their  carrying  their 
arms  openly.  The  soldier  must  know  who  he  has 
against  him  as  an  active  opponent,  he  must  be  pro- 
tected against  treacherous  killing  and  against  any 
military  operation  which  is  prohibited  by  the  usages 
of  war  among  regular  armies.  The  chivalrous  idea 
which  rules  in  the  regular  armies  of  all  civilized 

2Art.  9  (1). 


The  Hostile  Army  81 

States  always  seeks  an  open  profession  of  one's  bel- 
ligerent character.  The  demand  must,  therefore,  be 
insisted  on  that  irregular  troops,  although  not  in 
uniform,  shall  at  least  be  distinguishable  by  visible 
signs  which  are  recognizable  at  a  distance.3  Only 
by  such  means  can  the  occurrence  of  misuse  in  the 
practise  of  war  on  the  one  side,  and  the  tragic  con- 
sequences of  the  non-recognition  of  combatant  status 
on  the  other,  be  made  impossible.  The  Brussels 
Declarations  also  therefore  recommend,  in  Art.  9 
(2  and  3),  that  they,  i.e.,  the  irregular  troops,  should 
wear  a  fixed  sign  which  is  visible  from  a  distance, 
and  that  they  should  carry  their  weapons  openly. 
The  Hague  Convention  adds  to  these  three  conditions 
yet  a  fourth,  "  That  they  observe  the  laws  and  usages 
of  war  in  their  military  operations." 

This  condition  must  also  be  maintained  if  it  be-   The  Leve 

en  masse. 

3  The  necessity  of  an  adequate  mark  of  distinction  was  not 
denied  even  on  the  part  of  the  French  in  the  violent  contro- 
versy which  blazed  up  between  the  German  and  French  Gov- 
ernments on  the  subject  of  the  Franctireurs  in  the  war  of 
1870-1.  The  dispute  was  mainly  concerned  with  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  marks  worn  by  the  Franctireurs  were  suffi- 
cient or  not.  This  was  denied  on  the  German  side  in  many 
cases  with  all  the  greater  justification  as  the  usual  dress  of 
the  Franctireurs,  the  national  blue,  was  not  to  be  distin- 
guished from  the  customary  national  dress,  as  it  was  merely 
a  blouse  furnished  with  a  red  armlet.  Besides  which,  on  the 
approach  of  German  troops,  the  armlet  was  often  taken  off 
and  the  weapons  were  concealed,  thereby  offending  against  the 
principle  of  open  bearing.  These  kind  of  offenses,  as  also  the 
lack  of  a  firm  organization  and  the  consequent  irregularities, 


82      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

comes  a  question  of  the  levee  en  masse,  the  arming 
of  the  whole  population  of  the  country,  province,  or 
district;  in  other  words  the  so-called  people's  war 
or  national  war.4  Starting  from  the  view  that  one 
can  never  deny  to  the  population  of  a  country  the 
natural  right  of  defense  of  one's  fatherland,  and 
that  the  smaller  and  consequently  less  powerful 
States  can  only  find  protection  in  such  levees  en 
masse,  the  majority  of  authorities  on  International 
law  have,  in  their  proposals  for  codification,  sought 
to  attain  the  recognition  on  principle  of  the  com- 
batant status  of  all  these  kinds  of  people's  champions, 
and  in  the  Brussels  declaration  and  the  Hague  Regu- 
lations the  aforesaid  condition5  is  omitted.  As 
against  this  one  may  nevertheless  remark  that  the 
condition  requiring  a  military  organization  and  a 
clearly  recognizable  mark  of  being  attached  to  the 
enemy's  troops,  is  not  synonymous  with  a  denial  of 
the  natural  right  of  defense  of  one's  country.  It  is 

were  the  simple  reason  why  stern  treatment  of  the  Franctireurs 
in  the  Franco-Prussian  War  was  practised  and  had  necessarily 
to  be  practised. 

*  The  effacement  of  the  distinction  between  fighting  forces 
and  peaceful  population  on  the  part  of  the  Boers  no  doubt 
made  many  of  the  severities  practised  by  the  English  neces- 
sary. 

[s  i.e.,  the  condition  as  to  having  a  distinctive  mark.  So 
too,  the  Hague  Regulations  dispense  with  the  other  condition 
(of  having  a  responsible  leader  and  an  organization)  in  such 
a  case  of  a  lev£e  en  masse.  See  Regulations,  Art.  II. —  J. 
H.  M.] 


The  Hostile  Army  83 

therefore  not  a  question  of  restraining  the  popula- 
tion from  seizing  arms  but  only  of  compelling  it  to 
do  this  in  an  organized  manner.     Subjection  to  a  The  Hague;, 
responsible  leader,  a  military  organization,  and  clear  win  not  do.  £  v-~» 
recognizability  cannot  be  left  out  of  account  unless  \f*  * 

the  whole  recognized  foundation  for  the  admission  * 

of  irregulars  is  going  to  be  given  up  altogether,  and 
a  conflict  of  one  private  individual  against  another 

is  to  be  introduced  again,  with  all  its  attendant  hor-  A  short  way 

'  -it  i-          •     with  the 

rors,    of   which.    lor   example,    the   proceedings    in  Defender  of  *  ^ 

.  his  Country.  ** 

Bazeilles  in  the  last  Franco-Prussian  War  afford  an 
instance.  If  the  necessary  organization  does  not 
really  become  established  —  a  case  which  is  by  no 
means  likely  to  occur  often  —  then  nothing  remains 
but  a  conflict  of  individuals,  and  those  who  conduct 
it  cannot  claim  the  rights  of  an  active  military  status. 
The  disadvantages  and  severities  inherent  in  such  a 
state  of  affairs  are  more  insignificant  and  less  inhu- 
man than  those  which  would  result  from  recognition.8  •£- 

•  Professor  Dr.  C.  Liider,  Das  Landkriegsrecht,  Hamburg, 
1888.  [This  is  the  amiable  professor  who  writes  in  Holtzen- 
dorff 's  Handbuch  des  Volkerrechts  ( IV,  378 )  of  "  the  terror- 
ism so  often  necessary  in  war." — J.  H.  M.] 

[The  above  paragraph,  it  will  be  observed,  completely  throws 
over  Article  II  of  the  Hague  Regulations  extending  protection 
to  the  defenders  of  their  country. —  J.  H.  M.] 

t^V> 


CHAPTEK  II 

THE   MEANS    OF    CONDUCTING-   WAR 

violence  and    BY  the  means  of  conducting  war  is  to  be  understood 

Cunning. 

all  those  measures  which  can  be  taken  by  one  State 
against  the  other  in  order  to  attain  the  object  of  the 
war,  to  compel  one's  opponent  to  submit  to  one's  will ; 
they  may  be  summarized  in  the  two  ideas  of  Vio- 
lence and  Cunning,  and  judgment  as  to  their  ap- 
plicability may  be  embodied  in  the  following  proposi- 
tion: 

What  is  permissible  includes  every  means  of 
war  without  which  the  object  of  the  war  cannot  be 
obtained ;  what  is  reprehensible  on  the  other  hand 
includes  every  act  of  violence  and  destruction 
which  is  not  demanded  by  the  object  of  war. 

It  follows  from  these  universally  valid  principles 
that  wide  limits  are  set  to  the  subjective  freedom  and 
arbitrary  judgment  of  the  Commanding  Officer ;  the 
precepts  of  civilization,  freedom  and  honor,  the  tra- 
ditions prevalent  in  the  army,  and  the  general  usages 

of  war,  will  have  to  guide  his  decisions. 

84 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  85 


A. MEANS    OF  WAR    DEPENDING   ON    FOBCE 

The  most  important  instruments  of  war  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  enemy  are  his  army,  and  his  military 
positions;  to  make  an  end  of  them  is  the  first  object 
of  war.  This  can  happen: 

1.  By  the  annihilation,  slaughter,  or  wounding  of  the 

individual  combatants. 

2.  By  making  prisoners  of  the  same. 

3.  By  siege  and  bombardment. 

1.  Annihilation,  slaughter,  and  wounding  of  the  hos- 
tile combatants 
In  the  matter  of  making  an  end  of  the  enemy's  HOW  to 

f  i  .    ••  ..-.  ,  -.  IIP      make  an  end 

lorces  by  violence  it  is  an  incontestable  and  self-  or  the 

Enemy. 

evident  rule  that  the  right  of  killing  and  annihila- 
tion in  regard  to  the  hostile  combatants  is  inherent 
in  the  war  power  and  its  organs,  that  all  means  which 
modern  inventions  afford,  including  the  fullest,  most 
dangerous,  and  most  massive  means  of  destruction, 
may  be  utilized ;  these  last,  just  because  they  attain 
the  object  of  Avar  as  quickly  as  possible,  are  on  that 
account  to  be  regarded  as  indispensable  and,  when 
closely  considered,  the  most  human. 

Aa  a  supplement  to  this  rule,  the  usages  of  war  The  Rules  of 

i          •,.,.,.  ,,  the  Game. 

recognize  the  desirability  of  not  employing  severer 
forms  of  violence  if  and  when  the  object  of  the  war 
may  be  attained  by  milder  means,  and  furthermore 


86      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

that  certain  means  of  war  which  lead  to  unnecessary 
suffering  are  to  be  excluded.     To  suet  belong: 

The  use  of  poison  both  individually  and  collectively 
(such  as  poisoning  of  streams  and  food  supplies1)  the 
propagation  of  infectious  diseases. 

Assassination,  proscription,  and  outlawry  of  an  op- 
ponent.2 

The  use  of  arms  which  cause  useless  suffering,  such  as 
soft-nosed  bullets,  glass,  etc. 

The  killing  of  wounded  or  prisoners  who  are  no  longer 
capable  of  offering  resistance.3 

The  refusal  of  quarter  to  soldiers  who  have  laid  down 
their  arms  and  allowed  themselves  to  be  captured. 

The  progress  of  modern  invention  has  made  super- 
fluous the  express  prohibition  of  certain  old-fashioned 
but  formerly  legitimate  instruments  of  war  (chain 
shot,  red-hot  shot,  pitch  balls,  etc.),  since  others, 
more  effective,  have  been  substituted  for  these ;  on  the 

1  Notoriously  resorted  to  very  often  in  the  war  of  the  Span- 
ish against  Napoleon. 

2  Napoleon  was,  in  the  year  1815,  declared  an  outlaw  by  the 
Allies.     Such  a  proceeding  is  not  permissible  by  the  Interna- 
tional Law  of  to-day  since  it  involves  an  indirect  invitation 
to  assassination.     Also  the  offer  of  a  reward  for  the  capture 
of   a   hostile  prince  or   commander   as   occurred   in    August, 
1813,  on  the  part  of  the  Crown  Prince  of  Sweden  in  regard 
to  Napoleon,  is  no  longer  in  harmony  with  the  views  of  to- 
day and  the  usages  of  war.     [But  to  hire  a  third  person  to 
assassinate  one's  opponent  is  claimed  by  the  German  General 
Staff  (see  II,  b,  below)   as  quite  legitimate. —  J.  H.  M.] 

s  As  against  this  there  have  been  many  such  offenses  com- 
mitted in  the  wars  of  recent  times,  principally  on  the  Turkish 
side  in  the  Kusso-Turkish  War. 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  87 

other  hand  the  use  of  projectiles  of  less  than  400 
grammes  in  weight  is  prohibited  by  the  St.  Peters- 
burg Convention  of  December  llth,  1868.  (This 
only  in  the  case  of  musketry.4) 

He  who  offends  against  any  of  these  prohibitions  is 
to  be  held  responsible  therefore  by  the  State.  If  he 
is  captured  he  is  subject  to  the  penalties  of  military 
law. 

Closely  connected  with  the  unlawful  instruments  colored 

•       i  T  f  •    «T  111  Troops  are 

of  war  is  the  employment  of  uncivilized  and  barbar-  "  Blacklegs, 
ous  peoples  in  European  wars.  Looked  at  from  the 
point  of  view  of  law  it  can,  of  course,  not  be  for- 
bidden to  any  State  to  call  up  armed  forces  from  its 
extra-European  colonies,  but  the  practise  stands  in 
express  contradiction  to  the  modern  movement  for 
humanizing  the  conduct  of  war  and  for  alleviating 
its  attendant  sufferings,  if  men  and  troops  are  em- 
ployed in  war,  who  are  without  the  knowledge  of 
civilized  warfare  and  by  whom,  therefore,  the  very 
cruelties  and  inhumanities  forbidden  by  the  usages 
of  war  are  committed.  The  employment  of  these 
kinds  of  troops  is  therefore  to  be  compared  with  the 
use  of  the  instruments  of  war  already  described  as 

*This  prohibition  was  often  sinned  against  by  the  French 
in  the  war  of  1870-71.  Cp.  Bismarck's  despatches  of  Jan.  9th 
and  Feb.  7th,  1871 ;  also  Bluntschli  in  Holtzendorff's  Jahrbuch, 
I,  p.  279,  where  a  similar  reproach  brought  against  the  Baden 
troops  is  refuted. 


88      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

forbidden.  The  transplantation  of  African  and 
Mohammedan  Turcos  to  a  European  seat  of  war  in 
the  year  1870  was,  therefore,  undoubtedly  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  retrogression  from  civilized  to  barbarous 
warfare,  since  these  troops  had  and  could  have  no 
conception  of  European-Christian  culture,  or  respect 
for  property  and  for  the  honor  of  women,  etc,5 

2.  Capture  of  Enemy  Combatants 

If  individual  members  or  parties  of  the  army  fall 
into  the  power  of  the  enemy's  forces,  either  through 
their  being  disarmed  and  defenseless,  or  through 
their  being  obliged  to  cease  from  hostilities  in  con- 
sequence of  a  formal  capitulation,  they  are  then  in 
the  position  of  "  prisoners  of  war,"  and  thereby  in 
some  measure  exchange  an  active  for  a  passive  posi- 
tion. 

5  If  we  have  principally  in  view  the  employment  of  uncivil- 
ized and  barbarous  troops  on  a  European  seat  of  war,  that  is 
simply  because  the  war  of  1870  lies  nearest  to  us  in  point  of 
time  and  of  space.  On  a  level  with  it  is  the  employment  of 
Russo-Asiatic  nationalities  in  the  wars  of  emancipation,  of 
Indians  in  the  North-American  War,  of  the  Circassians  in  the 
Polish  Rising,  of  the  Bashi-bazouks  in  the  Russo-Turkish  War, 
etc.  As  regards  the  Turcos,  a  Belgian  writer  Rolin-Jacqu6- 
myns  said  of  them  in  regard  to  the  war  of  1859,  "les  allures 
et  le  conduite  des  Turcos  avaient  soulevg  d'universels  dugouts." 
On  the  other  side  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  a  section  of  the 
French  Press  in  1870  praised  them  precisely  because  of  their 
bestialities  and  incited  them  to  such  things,  thus  in  the  Inde- 
pendance  algerienne :  "  Arriere  la  pitie !  arriere  les  senti- 
ments  d'humanite!  Mort,  pillage  et  incendie!  " 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  89 

According  to  the  older  doctrine  of  international  vae 

Victis ! 

law  all  persons  belonging  to  the  hostile  State,  whether 
combatants  or  non-combatants,  who  happen  to  fall 
into  the  hands  of  their  opponent,  are  in  the  position 
of  prisoners  of  war.  He  could  deal  with  them  ac- 
cording to  his  pleasure,  ill-treat  them,  kill  them,  lead 
them  away  into  bondage,  or  sell  them  into  slavery. 
History  knows  but  few  exceptions  to  this  rule,  these 
being  the  result  of  particular  treaties.  In  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  the  Church  tried  to  intervene  as  mediator 
in  order  to  ameliorate  the  lot  of  the  prisoners,  but 
without  success.  Only  the  prospect  of  ransom,  and 
chivalrous  ideas  in  the  case  of  individuals,  availed  to 
give  any  greater  protection.  It  is  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  prisoners  belonged  to  him  who  had 
captured  them,  a  conception  which  began  to  disappear 
after  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  The  treatment  of 
prisoners  of  war  was  mostly  harsh  and  inhuman; 
still,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  usual  to 
secure  their  lot  by  a  treaty  on  the  outbreak  of  a  war. 

The  credit  of  having  opened  the  way  to  another 
conception  of  war  captivity  belongs  to  Frederick  the 
Great  and  Franklin,  inasmuch  as  they  inserted  in 
the  famous  Treaty  of  friendship,  concluded  in  1785 
between  Prussia  and  North  America,  entirely  new 
regulations  as  to  the  treatment  of  prisoners  of  war. 

The  complete  change  in  the  conception  of  war  in-  The  Modern 
troduced  in  recent  times  has  in  consequence  changed 


90      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

all  earlier  ideas  as  to  the  position  and  treatment  of 
prisoners  of  war.  Starting  from  the  principle  that 
only  States  and  not  private  persons  are  in  the  posi- 
tion of  enemies  in  time  of  war,  and  that  an  enemy 
who  is  disarmed  and  taken  prisoner  is  no  longer  an 
object  of  attack,  the  doctrine  of  war  captivity  is  en- 
tirely altered  and  the  position  of  prisoners  has  be- 
come assimilated  to  that  of  the  wounded  and  the 
sick. 
prisoners  of  The  present  position  of  international  law  and  the 

War  are  to  •••  L 


abiy  'treated  ^aw  °^  war  on  *ne  s^j60*  °^  prisoners  of  war  is 
based  on  the  fundamental  conception  that  they  are 
the  captives  not  of  private  individuals,  that  is  to 
say  of  Commanders,  Soldiers,  or  Detachments  of 
t1  Troops,  but  that  they  are  the  captives  of  the  State. 
But  the  State  regards  them  as  persons  who  have 
simply  done  their  duty  and  obeyed  the  commands 
of  their  superiors,  and  in  consequence  views  their 
captivity  not  as  penal  but  merely  as  precautionary. 
It  therefore  follows  that  the  object  of  war  cap- 
tivity is  simply  to  prevent  the  captives  from  taking 
any  further  part  in  the  war,  and  that  the  State  can, 
in  fact,  do  everything  which  appears  necessary  for 
securing  the  captives,  but  nothing  beyond  that.  The 
captives  have  therefore  to  submit  to  all  those  restric- 
tions and  inconveniences  which  the  purpose  of  se- 
curing them  necessitates;  they  can  collectively  be 
involved  in  a  common  suffering  if  some  individuals 


family  who  were  capable  of  bearing  arms,  the 
chief  of  the  enemy's  State,  generally  speaking, 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  91 

among  them  have  provoked  sterner  treatment;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  they  are  protected  against  un- 
justifiable severities,  ill-treatment,  and  unworthy 
handling;  they  do,  indeed,  lose  their  freedom,  but 
not  their  rights ;  war  captivity  is,  in  01  .ier  words,  no 
longer  an  act  of  grace  on  the  part  of  the  victor  but 
a  right  of  the  defenseless. 

According  to  the  notions  of  the  laws  of  war  to-  who  may  be  ' 

0  made  Prls-     * 

day  the  following  persons  are  to  be  treated  as  pris-  °ners- 

oners  of  war : 

*         -2- 

1.  The  Sovereign,  together  with  those  members  of  his 

J? •!__ 1  1  1  f      1         _       •_  il     _ 

111 

and  the  Ministers  who  conduct  its  policy  even 

though  they  are  not  among  the  individuals  be-  *  * 

longing  to  the  active  army.6  Jf 

2.  All  persons  belonging  to  the  armed  forces. 

3.  All  Diplomatists  and  Civil  Servants  attached  to  j? 

the  army. 

4.  All  civilians  staying  with  the  army,  with  the  ap- 

proval of  its  Commanders,  such  as  transport, 
sutlers,  contractors,  newspaper,  correspondents,       £ 
and  the  like. 

5.  All  persons  actively  concerned  with  the  war  such  as          i  ^ 

Higher  Officials,  Diplomatists,  Couriers,  and  the 
like,  as  also  all  those  persons  whose  freedom  can 
be  a  danger  to  the  army  of  the  other  State,  for 

8  Recent  examples :  the  capture  of  the  King  of  Saxony  by 
the  Allies  after  the  Battle  of  Leipzig,  and  also  of  Napoleon, 
that  of  the  Elector  of  Hesse,  1866,  Napoleon  III,  1870,  Abdel- 
Kader,  1847,  and  Schamyl,  1859. 


dtAA*.- 


92      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 


Tbe  treat- 
ment of  Pris- 
oners of 
War. 


Their  con- 
finement. 


example,  Journalists  of  hostile  opinions,  pronii- 
nent  and  influential  leaders  of  Parties,  Clergy 
who  excite  the  people,  and  such  like.7 

mass  of  the  population  of  a  province  or  a  dis- 
trict  if  they,  rise  in  defense  of  their  country.       V 

fcaWteW    «  &*•**+**  t»W«  <•    Lu   ^  I  "^3-  / 

The  points  of  view  regarding  the  treatment  of 
prisoners  of  war  may  be  summarized  in  the  follow- 
ing rules: 

Prisoners  of  war  are  subject  to  the  laws  of  the 
State  which  has  captured  them. 

The  relation  of  the  prisoners  of  war  to  their  own 
former  superiors  ceases  during  their  captivity  ;  a  cap- 
tured officer's  servant  steps  into  the  position  of  a  pri- 
vate servant.  Captured  officers  are  never  the  su- 
periors of  soldiers  of  the  State  which  has  captured 
them;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  under  the  orders 
of  such  of  the  latter  as  are  entrusted  with  their 
custody. 

The  prisoners  of  war  have,  in  the  places  in  which 
they  are  quartered,  to  submit  to  such  restrictions  of 
their  liberty  as  are  necessary  for  their  safe  keeping. 
They  have  strictly  to  comply  with  the  obligation  im- 
posed upon  them,  not  to  move  beyond  a  certain  in- 
dicated boundary. 

These  measures  for  their  safe  keeping  are  not  to 

1  In  this  light  must  be  judged  the  measures  taken  in  1866 
by  General  Vogel  von  Falckenstein  against  certain  Hanoverian 
citizens  although  these  measures  have  often  been  represented 
in  another  light. 

- 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  93 

be  exceeded;  in  particular,  penal  confinement,  fet- 
ters, and  unnecessary  restrictions  of  freedom  are 
only  to  be  resorted  to  if  particular  reasons  exist  to 
justify  or  necessitate  them. 

The  concentration  camps  in  which  prisoners  of 
\var  are  quartered  must  be  as  healthy,  clean,  and  de- 
cent as  possible;  they  should  not  be  prisons  or  con- 
vict establishments. 

It  is  true  that  the  French  captives  were  trans- 
ported by  the  Russians  to  Siberia  as  malefactors  in 
the  years  1812  and  1813:  This  was  a  measure 
which  was  not  illegitimate  according  to  the  older 
practise  of  war,  but  it  is  no  longer  in  accordance 
with  the  legal  conscience  of  to-day.  Similarly  the 
methods  which  were  adopted  during  the  Civil  War 
in  Korth  America  in  a  prison  in  the  Southern  States, 
against  prisoners  of  war  of  the  Union  Forces,  whereby 
the  men  were  kept  without  air  and  nourishment  and 
thus  badly  treated,  were  also  against  the  practise  of 
the  law  of  war. 

Freedom  of  movement  within  these  concentration 
ramps  or  within  the  whole  locality  may  be  permitted 
if  there  are  no  special  reasons  against  it.  But  ob- 
viously prisoners  of  war  are  subject  to  the  existing, 
or  to  the  appointed  rules  of  the  establishment  or 
garrison. 

Prisoners  of  war  can  be  put  to  moderate  work  pro-  The  pns- 

,.  ,,      .  •.••!•/•  i      •  £        oner  and  his 

portionate  to  their  position  in  life;  work  is  a  safe-  Taskmaster. 


94      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

guard  against  excesses.  Also  on  grounds  of  health 
this  is  desirable.  But  these  tasks  should  not  be 
prejudicial  to  health  nor  in  any  way  dishonorable  or 
such  as  contribute  directly  or  indirectly  to  the  mili- 
tary operations  against  the  Fatherland  of  the  cap- 
tives. Work  for  the  State  is,  according  to  the 
Hague  regulations,  to  be  paid  at  the  rates  payable  to 
members  of  the  army  of  the  State  itself. 

Should  the  work  be  done  on  account  of  other  pub- 
lic authorities  or  of  private  persons,  then  the  condi- 
tions will  be  fixed  by  agreement  with  the  military  au- 
thorities. The  wages  of  the  prisoners  of  war  must 
be  expended  in  the  improvement  of  their  condition, 
and  anything  that  remains  should  be  paid  over  to 
them  after  deducting  the  cost  of  their  maintenance 
when  they  are  set  free.  Voluntary  work  in  order 
to  earn  extra  wages  is  to  be  allowed,  if  there  are  no 
particular  reasons  against  it.8  Insurrection,  insub- 
ordination, misuse  of  the  freedom  granted,  will  of 
course  justify  severer  confinement  in  each  case,  also 
punishment,  and  so  will  crimes  and  misdemean- 
ors. 

night.  Attempts  at  escape  on  the  part  of  individuals  who 

have  not  pledged  their  word  of  honor  might  be  re- 

s  Thus  the  French  prisoners  in  1870-1  were  very  thankful 
to  find  employment  in  great  numbers  as  harvest  workers,  or 
in  the  counting  houses  of  merchants  or  in  the  factories  of 
operatives  or  wherever  an  opportunity  occurred,  and  were 
thereby  enabled  to  earn  extra  wages. 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  95 

garded  as  the  expression  of  a  natural  impulse  for 
liberty,  and  not  as  a  crime.  They  are  therefore  to 
be  punished  by  restriction  of  the  privileges  granted 
and  a  sharper  supervision  but  not  with  death.  But 
the  latter  punishment  will  follow  of  course  in  the 
case  of  plots  to  escape,  if  only  because  of  the  danger 
of  them.  In  case  of  a  breach  of  a  man's  parole  the 
punishment  of  death  may  reasonably  be  incurred. 
In  some  circumstances,  if  necessity  and  the  behavior 
of  the  prisoners  compel  it,  one  is  justified  in  taking 
measures  the  effect  of  which  is  to  involve  the  in- 
nocent with  the  guilty.9  tf 

The  food  of  the  prisoners  must  be  sufficient  and  Diet, 
suitable  to  their  rank,  yet  they  will  have  to  be  con- 
tent with  the  customary  food  of  the  country;  lux- 
uries which  the  prisoners  wish  to  get  at  their  own 
expense  are  to  be  permitted  if  reasons  of  discipline 
do  not  forbid. 

Correspondence  with  one's  home  is  to  be  permitted,  Letters, 
likewise  visits  and  intercourse,  but  these  of  course 
must  be  watched. 

The  prisoners  of  war  remain  in  possession  of  their  personal 

.  .,,       ,  .  .  .  belongings. 

private  property  with  the  exception  of  arms,  horses, 

»Thus  General  von  Falckenstein  in  1870,  in  order  to  check 
the  prevalent  escaping  of  French  officers,  commanded  that  for 
every  escape  ten  officers  whose  names  were  to  be  determined 
by  drawing  lots  should  be  sent  off,  with  the  loss  of  all  priv- 
ileges of  rank,  to  close  confinement  in  a  Prussian  fortress,  a 
measure  which  was,  indeed,  often  condemned  but  against 
which  nothing  can  be  said  on  the  score  of  the  law  of  nations. 

X  *V*         ' 


96      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

and  documents  of  a  military  purport.     If  for  defi- 
nite reasons  any  objects  are  taken  away  from  them, 
then  these  must  be  kept  in  suitable  places  and  re- 
stored to  them  at  the  end  of  their  captivity. 
The  infer-  Article  14:  of  the  Hague  Regulations  prescribes 

Bureau.  that  on  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  there  shall  be  estab- 
lished in  each  of  the  belligerent  States  and  in  a 
given  case  in  neutral  States,  which  have  received 
into  their  territory  any  of  the  combatants,  an 
information  bureau  for  prisoners  of  war.  Its  duty 
will  be  to  answer  all  inquiries  concerning  such  pris- 
oners and  to  receive  the  necessary  particulars  from 
the  services  concerned  in  order  to  be  able  to  keep  a 
personal  entry  for  every  prisoner.  The  information 
bureau  must  always  be  kept  well  posted  about  every- 
thing which  concerns  a  prisoner  of  war.  Also  this 
information  bureau  must  collect  and  assign  to  the 
legitimate  persons  all  personal  objects,  valuables,  let- 
ters, and  the  like,  which  are  found  on  the  field  of 
battle  or  have  been  left  behind  by  dead  prisoners 
of  war  in  hospitals  or  field-hospitals.  The  informa- 
tion bureau  enjoys  freedom  from  postage,  as  do  gen- 
erally all  postal  despatches  sent  to  or  by  prisoners 
of  war.  Charitable  gifts  for  prisoners  of  war  must 
be  free  of  customs  duty  and  also  of  freight  charges 
on  the  public  railways. 

The  prisoners  of  war  have,  in  the  event  of  their 
being  wounded  or  sick,  a  claim  to  medical  assistance 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  97 

and  care  as  understood  by  the  Geneva  Convention 

and,  so  far  as  is  possible,  to  spiritual  ministrations 

also. 

These  rules  may  be  shortly  summarized  as  follows : 
Prisoners  of  war  are  subject  to  the  laws  of  the 

country  in  which  they  find  themselves,  particularly 

the  rules  in  force  in  the  army  of  the  local  State; 

they  are  to  be  treated  like  one's  own  soldiers,  neither 

worse  nor  better. 

The  following  considerations  hold  good  as  regard  when 

the  imposition  of  a  death  penalty  in  the  case  of  pris-  beeput 

Death. 

oners ;  they  can  be  put  to  death : 

1.  In  case  they  commit  offenses  or  are  guilty  of  prac- 

tises which  are  punishable  by  death  by  civil  or 
military  laws. 

2.  In  case  of  insubordination,  attempts  at  escape,  etc., 

deadly  weapons  can  be  employed. 

3.  In  case  of  overwhelming  necessity,  as  reprisals, 

either  against  similar  measures,  pr_against  _pther  \ 
irregularities  on  the  part  of  the  management  of  I 
the  enemy's  army. 

4.  In  case  br  overwhelming  necessity,   when   other  i 

means  of  precaution  do  not  exist  and  the  ex-  \ 
istence  of  the  prisoners  becomes  a  danger  to  one's 
own  existence. 


As  regards  the  admissibility  of  reprisals,  it  is  to 
be  remarked  that  these  are  objected  to  by  numerous 
teachers  of  international  law  on  grounds  of  humanity. 


"  Reprisals. 


98       The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 


One  mast 
not  be  too 
scrupulous. 


To  make  this  a  matter  of  principle,  and  apply  it  to 
every  case  exhibits,  however,  "  a  misconception  due 
to  intelligible  but  exaggerated  and  unjustifiable  feel- 
ings of  humanity,  of  the  significance,  the  seriousness 
and  the  right  of  war.  It  must  not  be  overlooked 
that  here  also  the  necessity  of  war,  and  the  safety  of 
the  State  are  the  first  consideration,  and  not  regard 
for  the  unconditional  freedom  of  prisoners  from 
molestation."  10 

That  prisoners  should  only  be  killed  in  the  event 
of  extreme  necessity,  and  that  only  the  duty  of  self- 
preservation  and  the  security  of  one's  own  State  can. 
justify  a  proceeding  of  this  kind  is  to-day  universally 
admitted.  But  that  these  considerations  have  not 
always  been  decisive  is  proved  by  the  shooting  of 
2,000  Arabs  at  Jaffa  in  1799  by  Napoleon;  of  the 
prisoners  in  the  rising  of  La  Vendee;  in  the  Carlist 
War  ;  in  Mexico,  and  in^ha^mencan  War  of  Seces- 
sion, where  it  was  generally  a  case  of  deliverance 
"Jrom  burdensome  supervision  and  the  difficulties  of 
maintenance;  whereas  peoples  of  a,  higher^  morality 
t**^  *tsuch  as  the  Bogrg  in  our  own  days,  finding  them- 
**'<H  •  selves  in  a  similar  position,  have  preferred  to  let 
their  prisoners  go.  For  the  rest,  calamities  such  as 
might  lead  to  the  shooting  of  prisoners  are  scarcely 
likely  to  happen  under  the  excellent  conditions  of 
transport  in  our  own  time  and  the  correspondingly 

10  [Professor]  Lueder,  Das  Landkriegsrecht,  p.  73. 


t 


vMWflMPYwJ 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  99 

small  difficulty  of  feeding  them  —  in  a  European 
campaign.11 

The  captivity  of  war  comes  to  an  end:  The  end  of 

Captivity. 

1.  By  force  of  circumstances  which  de  facto  determine 

it,  for  example,  successful  escape,  cessation  of 
the  war,  or  death. 

2.  By  becoming  the  subject  of  the  enemy's  state. 

3.  By  release,  whether  conditional  or  unconditional, 

unilateral  or  reciprocal. 

4.  By  exchange. 

As  to  1.  With  the  cessation  of  the  war  every  rea- 
son for  the  captivity  ceases,  provided  there  exist  no 
special  grounds  for  another  view.  It  is  on  that  ac- 
count that  care  should  be  taken  to  discharge  pris- 
oners immediately.  There  remain  only  prisoners 

11  What  completely  false  notions  about  the  right  of  killing 
prisoners  of  war  are  prevalent  even  among  educated  circles  in 
France  is  shown  by  the  widely-circulated  novel  Les  Braves 
Gens,  by  Margueritte,  in  which,  on  page  360  of  the  chapter 
"  Mon  Premier,"  is  told  the  story,  based  apparently  on  an 
actual  occurrence,  of  the  shooting  of  a  captured  Prussian  sol- 
dier, and  it  is  excused  simply  because  the  information  given 
by  him  as  to  the  movements  of  his  own  people  turned  out 
to  be  untrue.  The  cowardly  murder  of  a  defenseless  man  is 
regarded  by  the  author  as  a  stern  duty,  due  to  war,  and  ia 
thus  declared  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  usages  of  war. 
[The  indignation  of  the  German  General  Staff  is  somewhat 
overdone,  as  a  little  further  on  (see  the  chapter  on  treatment 
of  inhabitants  of  occupied  territory)  in  the  War  Book  they 
advocate  the  ruthless  shooting  or  hanging  of  an  inhabitant 
who,  being  forced  to  guide  an  enemy  army  against  his  own, 
leads  them  astray. —  J.  H.  M.] 


100       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

sentenced  to  punishment  or  awaiting  trial,  i.e.,  until 
the  expiation  of  their  sentence  or  the  end  of  their 
trial  as  the  case  may  be. 

As  to  2.  This  pre-supposes  the  readiness  of  the 
State  to  accept  the  prisoner  as  a  subject. 

parole.  As  to  3.     A  man  released  under  certain  conditions 

has  to  fulfil  them  without  question.  If  he  does  not 
do  this,  and  again  falls  into  the  hands  of  his  enemy, 
then  he  must  expect  to  be  dealt  with  by  military  law, 
and  indeed  according  to  circumstances  with  the  pun- 
ishment of  death.  A  conditional  release  cannot  be 
imposed  on  the  captive ;  still  less  is  there  any  obliga- 
tion upon  the  state  to  discharge  a  prisoner  on  condi- 
tions —  for  example,  on  his  parole.  The  release  de- 
pends entirely  on  the  discretion  of  the  State,  as  does 
also  the  determination  of  its  limits  and  the  persons 
to  whom  it  shall  apply. 

The  release  of  whole  detachments  on  their  parole 
is  not  usual.  It  is  rather  to  be  regarded  as  an  ar- 
rangement with  each  particular  individual. 

Arrangements  of  this  kind,  every  one  of  which  is 
as  a  rule  made  a  conditional  discharge,  must  be  very 
precisely  formulated  and  the  wording  of  them  most 
carefully  scrutinized.  In  particular  it  must  be  pre- 
cisely expressed  whether  the  person  released  is  only 
bound  no  longer  to  fight  directly  with  arms  against 
the  State  which  releases  him,  in  the  present  war, 
whether  he  is  justified  in  rendering  services  to  his 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  101 

own  country  in  other  positions  or  in  the  colonies,  etc., 
or  whether  all  and  every  kind  of  service  is  forbidden 
him. 

The  question  whether  the  parole  given  by  an  of- 
ficer or  a  soldier  is  recognized  as  binding  or  not  by 
his  own  State  depends  on  whether  the  legislation  or 
even  the  military  instructions  permit  or  forbid  the  . 
giving  of  one's  parole.12^  In  the  first  case  his  own 
State  must  not  command  him  to  do  services  the  per-  n,(U«1**».  fc 
formance  of  which  he  has  pledged  himself  not  to 
undertake.13     But  personally  the  man  released  on 
parole  is  under  all  circumstances  bound  to  observe 


it.     He  destroys  his  honor  if  he  breaks  his  word,  T**»t  * 
and   is   liable  to  punishment   if   recaptured,    even  w<^*** 
though  he  has  been  hindered  by  his  own  State  from  *  ^X-**-*1 
keeping  it.14     According  to  the  Hague  Regulations  a  ^*  I 

*^4        ^t_^4i  if-it**^ 

Government  can  demand  no  services  which  are  in  * 
conflict  with  a  man's  parole. 

P  12  In  Austria  the  giving  of  one's  parole  whether  by  troops 
or  officers  is  forbidden. 

is  Monod,  Allemands  et  Fran^ais,  Souvenirs  de  Campagne, 
39  :  "I  saw  again  at  Tours  some  faces  which  I  had  met 
before  Sedan;  among  them  were,  alas!  officers  who  had  sworn 
not  to  take  up  arms  again,  and  who  were  preparing  to  vio- 
late their  parole,  encouraged  by  a  Government  in  whom  the 
sense  of  honor  was  as  blunted  as  the  sense  of  truth." 

01*  In  the  year  1870,  145  French  officers,  including  three 
Generals,  one  Colonel,  two  Lieutenant-Colonels,  three  Com- 
mandants, thirty  Captains  (Bismarck's  Despatch  of  December 
14th,  1870),  were  guilty  of  breaking  their  parole.  The  ex- 
cuses, afterwards  put  forward,  were  generally  quite  unsound, 
though  perhaps  there  may  have  been  an  element  of  doubt  in 


4-  .  1^1%  W  , 


102 
Exchange  of        As  to  4.     The  exchange  of  prisoners  in  a  single 

Prisoners. 

case  can  take  place  between  two  belligerents  with- 
out its  being  necessary  in  every  case  to  make  circum- 
stantial agreements.  As  regards  the  scope  of  the  ex- 
change and  the  forms  in  which  it  is  to  be  completed 
the  Commanding  Officers  on  both  sides  alone  decide. 
Usually  the  exchange  is  man  for  man,  in  which  case 
the  different  categories  of  military  persons  are  taken 
into  account  and  certain  ratios  established  as  to  what 
constitutes  equivalents. 

Removal  of  Transport  of  Prisoners. —  Since  no  Army  makes 
prisoners  in  order  to  let  them  escape  again  af  terwards, 
measures  must  be  taken  for  their  transport  in  order 
to  prevent  attempts  at  escape.  If  one  recalls  that  in 
the  year  1870-71,  no  fewer  than  11,160  officers 
and  333,885  men  were  brought  from  France  to  Ger- 
many, and  as  a  result  many  thousands  often  had  to 
be  guarded  by  a  proportionately  small  company,  one 
must  admit  that  in  such  a  position  only  the  most 
zealous  energy  and  ruthless  employment  of  all  the 
means  at  one's  disposal  can  avail,  and  although  it  is 
opposed  to  military  sentiment  to  use  weapons  against 
the  defenseless,  none  the  less  in  such  a  case  one  has 
no  other  choice.  The  captive  who  seeks  to  free  him- 
self by  flight  does  so  at  his  peril  and  can  complain 

some  of  the  cases  so  positively  condemned  on  the  German  side. 
The  proceedings  of  the  French  Government  who  allowed  these 
persons  without  scruple  to  take  service  again  were  subse- 
quently energetically  denounced  by  the  National  Assembly. 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  103 

of  no  violence  which  the  custody  of  prisoners  directs   t  ,. 
in  order  to  prevent  behavior  j)f_  that  kind.*  Apart  v  f 

from  these~~apparently  "harsh  measures  against  at-  *^ 
tempt  at  escape,  the  transport  authorities  must  do  " 
everything  they  can  to  alleviate  the  lot  of  the  sick  ^ 


and  wounded  prisoners,  in  particular  they  are  to  ^tf* 
protect  them  against  insults  and  ill-treatment  from  S*#f  *" 
an  excited  mob.  ^%« 


3.  Sieges  and  Bombardments 

War  is  waged  not  merely  with  the  hostile  combat-  Fair  Game. 
ants  but  also  with  the  inanimate  military  resources 
of  the  enemy.  This  includes  not  only  the  fortresses 
but  also  every  town  and  every  village  which  is  an 
obstacle  to  military  progress.  All  can  be  besieged 
and  bombarded,  stormed  and  destroyed,  if  they  are 
defended  by  the  enemy,  and  in  some  cases  even  if  they 
are  only  occupied.  There  has  always  been  a  divergence 
of  views,  among  Professors  of  International  Law, 
as  to  the  means  which  are  permissible  for  waging 
war  against  these  inanimate  objects,  and  these  views 
have  frequently  been  in  strong  conflict  with  those  of 
soldiers;  it  is  therefore  necessary  to  go  into  this 
question  more  closely. 

We  have  to  distinguish  : 

(a)  Portresses,  strong  places,  and  fortified  places. 
(&)   Open  towns,  villages,  buildings,  and  the  like, 

which,  however,  are  occupied  or  used  for  mili- 

tary purposes. 


Fortresses  and  strong  places  are  important  cen- 
ters of  defense,  not  merely  in  a  military  sense,  but 
also  in  a  political  and  economic  sense.  They  fur- 
nish a  principal  resource  to  the  enemy  and  can  there- 
fore be  bombarded  just  like  the  hostile  army  it- 
self, 
of  making  A  preliminary  notification  of  bombardment  is  iust 

the  most  of  .  x  f  g  J 

one's  oppor-     as  little  to  be  required  as  in  the  case  of  a  sudden 

t  unity. 

assault.  The  claims  to  the  contrary  put  forward  by 
some  jurists  are  completely  inconsistent  with  war 
and  must  be  repudiated  by  soldiers;  the  cases  in 
which  a  notification  has  been  voluntarily  given  do 
not  prove  its  necessity.  The  besieger  will  have  to 
consider  for  himself  the  question  whether  the  very 
absence  of  notification  may  not  be  itself  a  factor  of 
success,  by  means  of  surprise,  and  indeed  whether 
notification  will  not  mean  a  loss  of  precious  time. 
If  there  is  no  danger  of  this  then  humanity  no  doubt 
demands  such  a  notification. 

Since  town  and  fortifications  belong  together  and 
form  an  inseparable  unity,  and  can  seldom  in  a  mili- 
tary sense,  and  never  in  an  economic  and  political 
sense,  be  separated,  the  bombardment  will  not  limit 
itself  to  the  actual  fortification,  but  it  will  and  must 
extend  over  the  whole  town ;  the  reason  for  this  lies 
in  the  fact  that  a  restriction  of  the  bombardment 
to  the  fortifications  is  impracticable;  it  would 
jeopardize  the  success  of  the  operation,  and  would 

eu*v 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  105 

quite  unjustifiably  protect  the  defenders  who  are 
not  necessarily  quartered  in  the  works. 

But  this  does  not  preclude  the  exemption  by  the  spare  the 

,.  ,,  .  .  IT       -IT  cic  Churches. 

besieger  01  certain  sections  and  buildings  01  the  for- 
tress or  town  from  bombardment,  such  as  churches, 
schools,  libraries,  museums,  and  the  like,  so  far  as 
this  is  possible. 

But  of  course  it  is  assumed  that  buildings  seek- 
ing this  protection  will  be  distinguishable  and  that 
they  are  not  put  to  defensive  uses.  Should  this  hap- 
pen, then  every  humanitarian  consideration  must 
give  way.  The  utterances  of  French  writers  about  the 
bombardments  of  Strasburg  Cathedral  in  the  year 
1870,  are  therefore  quite  without  justification,  since 
it  only  happened  after  an  observatory  for  officers  of 
artillery  had  been  erected  on  the  tower. 

The  only  exemption  from  bombardment  recognized 
by  international  law,  through  the  medium  of  the 
Geneva  Convention,,  concerns  hospitals  and  convales- 
cent establishments.  Their  extension  is  left  to  the 
discretion  of  the  besieger. 

As  regards  the  civil  population  of  a  fortified  place  A  Bombard- 

i       •  A  11      i         •     i      i  •  11  •  meat  Is  no 

the  rule  is:     All  the  inhabitants,  whether  natives  or  Respecter  of 

,        .  ,       ,  .      Persona. 

foreigners,  whether  permanent  or  temporary  resi- 
dents, are  to  be  treated  alike. 

No  exception  need  be  made  in  regard  to  the  diplo- 
matists of  neutral  States  who  happen  to  be  in  the 
town  ;  if  before  or  during  the  investment  by  the  be- 


t 


H 


106 

sieger  their  attention  is  drawn  to  the  fate  to  which 
they  expose  themselves  by  remaining,  and  if  days  of 
grace  in  which  to  leave  are  afforded  them,  that  simply 
rests  on  the  courtesy  of  the  besieger.  No  such  duty 
is  incumbent  upon  him  in  international  law.  Also 
permission  to  send  out  couriers  with  diplomatic  des- 
patches depends  entirely  upon  the  discretion  of  the 
besieger.  In  any  case  it  will  always  depend  on 
whether  the  necessary  security  against  misuse  is  pro- 
vided.15 

If  the  commandant  of  a  fortress  wishes  to 
strengthen  its  defensive  capacity  by  expelling  a  por- 
tion of  the  population  such  as  women,  children,  old 
people,  wounded,  etc.,  then  he  must  take  these  steps 
in  good  time,  i.e.,  before  the  investment  begins.  If 
the  investment  is  completed,  no  claim  to  the  free 
passage  of  these  classes  can  be  made  good.  All  juris- 
tic demands  to  the  contrary  are  as  a  matter  of  prin- 
ciple to  be  repudiated,  as  being  in  fundamental  con- 
flict with  the  principles  of  war.  The  very  pres- 

is  To  a  petition  of  the  diplomatists  shut  up  in  Paris  to  be 
allowed  to  send  a  courier  at  least  once  a  week,  Bismarck 
answered  in  a  document  of  September  27th,  1870,  as  follows: 
"  The  authorization  of  exchange  of  correspondence  in  the  case 
of  a  fortress  is  not  generally  one  of  the  usages  of  war;  and 
although  we  would  authorize  willingly  the  forwarding  of  open 
letters  from  diplomatic  agents,  in  so  far  as  their  contents  be 
not  inconvenient  from  a  military  point  of  view,  I  cannot  recog- 
nize as  well  founded  the  opinion  of  those  who  should  consider 
the  interior  of  the  fortifications  of  Paris  as  a  suitable  center 
for  diplomatic  relations." 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War 


107 


ence  of  such  persons  may  accelerate  the  surrender  of 
the  place  in  certain  circumstances,  and  it  would 
therefore  be  foolish  of  a  besieger  to  renounce  volun- 
tarily this  advantage.16 

Once  the  surrender  of  a  fortress  is  accomplished, 
then,  by  the  usages  of  war  to-day,  any  further  de- 
struction, annihilation,  incendiarism,  and  the  like, 
are  completely  excluded.  The  only  further  injuries 
that  are  permitted  are  those  demanded  or  necessitated 
by  the  object  of  the  war,  e.g.,  destruction  of  fortifica- 

18  "In  the  year  1870  the  greatest  mildness  was  practised 
on  the  German  side  towards  the  French  fortresses.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  siege  of  Strassburg  it  was  announced  to  the 
French  Commander  that  free  passage  was  granted  to  the 
women,  the  children,  and  the  sick,  a  favor  which  General 
Uhrich  rejected,  and  the  offer  of  which  he  very  wisely  did 
not  make  known  to  the  population.  And  when  later  three 
delegates  of  the  Swiss  Federal  Council  sought  permission  in 
accordance  with  the  resolution  of  the  Conference  at  Olten,  of 
September  7th,  to  carry  food  to  the  civil  population  in  Strass- 
burg  and  to  conduct  non-combatants  out  of  the  town  over  the 
frontier,  both  requests  were  willingly  granted  by  the  besieger 
and  four  thousand  inhabitants  left  the  fortress  as  a  result  of 
this  permission.  Lastly,  the  besiegers  of  Belfort  granted  to 
the  women,  children,  aged,  and  sick,  free  passage  to  Switzer- 
land, not  indeed  immediately  at  the  moment  chosen  by  the 
commander  Denfert,  but  indeed  soon  after"  (Ddhn,  I,  p.  89). 
Two  days  after  the  bombardment  of  Bitsch  had  begun  (Sep- 
tember llth)  the  townsfolk  begged  for  free  passage  out  of 
the  town.  This  was,  indeed,  officially  refused;  but,  none  the 
less,  by  the  indulgence  of  the  besieger,  it  was  effected  by  a 
great  number  of  townspeople.  Something  like  one-half  of  the 
2,700  souls  of  the  civil  population,  including  the  richest  and 
most  respectable,  left  the  town  (Irle,  die  Festung  Bitsch. 
Beitrage  zur  Lander  und  Volkerkunde  von  Elsass-Lothringen). 


- 

X 


108       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

tions,  removal  of  particular  buildings,  or  in  some  cir- 
cumstances of  complete  quarters,  rectification  of  the 
foreground  and  so  on. 
••  undefended       A  prohibition  by  international  law  of  the  bombard- 

Places."  f  .,,  . 

ment  01  open  towns  and  villages  which  are  not  oc- 
cupied by  the  enemy,  or  defended,  was,  indeed,  put 
into  words  by  the  Hague  Regulations,  but  appears 
superfluous,  since  modern  military  history  knows  of 
V  hardly  any  such  case. 

But  the  matter  is  different  where  open  towns  are 
occupied  by  the  enemy  or  are  defended.  In  this 
case,  naturally  all  the  rules  stated  above  as  to  fortified 
places  hold  good,  and  the  simple  rules  of  tactics 
dictate  that  fire  should  be  directed  not  merely  against 
the  bounds  of  the  place,  so  that  the  space  behind  the 
enemy's  firing  line  and  any  reserves  that  may  be 
there  shall  not  escape.  A  bombardment  is  indeed 
justified,  and  unconditionally  dictated  by  military 
consideration,  if  the  occupation  of  the  village  is  not 
with  a  view  to  its  defense  but  only  for  the  passage  of 
troops,  or  to  screen  an  approach  or  retreat,  or  to  pre- 
pare or  cover  a  tactical  movement,  or  to  take  up  sup- 
plies, etc.  The  only  criterion  is  the  value  which  the 
place  possesses  for  the  enemy  in  the  existing  situa- 
tion. 

Regarding  it  from  this  point  of  view,  the  bombard- 
ment of  Kehl  by  the  French  in  18YO  was  justified  by 
military  necessity,  although  the  place  bombarded  was 


ft* 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  109 

an  open  town  and  not  directly  defended.  "  Kehl 
offered  the  attacking  force  the  opportunity  of  estab- 
lishing itself  in  its  buildings,  and  of  bringing  up  and 
placing  there  its  personnel  and  material,  unseen  by 
the  defenders.  It  became  a  question  of  making  Kehl 
inaccessible  to  the  enemy  and  of  depriving  it  of  the 
characteristics  which  made  its  possession  advanta- 
geous to  the  enemy.  The  aforesaid  justification  was 
not  very  evident."  17 

Also  the  bombardment  of  the  open  town  of  Saar- 
briicken  cannot  from  the  military  point  of  view  be  the 
subject  of  reproach  against  the  French.  On  August 
2nd  a  Company  of  the  Fusilier  Regiment  No.  40 
had  actually  occupied  the  railway  station  and  several 
others  had  taken  up  a  position  in  the  town.  It  was 
against  these  troops  that  the  fire  of  the  French  was 
primarily  directed.  If  havoc  was  spread  in  the  town, 
that  could  scarcely  be  avoided.  In  the  night  of 
August  3rd  to  4th,  the  fire  of  the  French  batteries 
was  again  directed  on  the  railway  station  in  order  to 
prevent  the  despatch  of  troops  and  material. 
Against  this  proceeding  also  no  objection  can  be 
made,  since  the  movement  of  trains  had  actually 
taken  place. 

If,  therefore,  on  the  German  side  18  energetic  pro- 
test were  made  in  both  cases,  and  the  bombardment 

IT  Hartmann,  Krit.  Versuche,  II,  p.  83. 
is  Staatsanzeiger,  August  26th,  1870. 


stratagems. 


110       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

of  Kehl  and  Saarbriicken  were  declared  a  violation 
of  international  law,  this  only  proves  that  in  1870  a 
proper  comprehension  of  questions  of  the  laws  of 
war  of  this  kind  was  not  always  to  be  found  even 
in  the  highest  military  and  official  circles.  But  still 
less  was  this  the  case  on  the  French  side  as  is  clear 
from  the  protests  against  the  German  bombardment 
of  Dijon,  Chateaudun,  Bazeilles,  and  other  places, 
the  military  justification  for  which  is  still  clearer 
and  incontestable.19 

B.  -  METHODS    NOT    INVOLVING    THE    USE    OF    FORCE. 
CUNNING,  AND  DECEIT 

Cunning  in  war  has  been  permissible  from  the 
earliest  times,  and  was  esteemed  all  the  more  as  it 

19  Considering  the  many  unintelligible  things  written  on  the 
French  side  about  this,  the  opinion  of  an  objective  critic  is 
doubly  valuable.  Monod,  p.  55,  op.  cit.,  says  :  "  I  have  seen 
Bazeilles  burning;  I  have  informed  myself  with  the  greatest 
care  as  to  how  things  happened.  I  have  questioned  French 
soldiers,  Bavarian  soldiers,  and  Bavarian  inhabitants  present 
at  this  terrible  drama;  I  am  able  to  see  in  it  only  one  of  the 
frightful,  but  inevitable,  consequences  of  the  war."  As  to  the 
treatment  of  Chateaudun,  stigmatized  generally  on  the  French 
side  as  barbarous,  the  author  writes  (p.  56):  "The  inhab- 
itants of  Chateaudun,  regularly  organized  as  part  of  the  Na- 
tional Guard,  aided  by  the  franctireurs  of  Paris,  do  not  defend 
themselves  by  preparing  ambushes  but  by  fighting  as  soldiers. 
Chateaudun  is  bombarded;  nothing  could  be  more  legitimate, 
since  the  inhabitants  made  a  fortress  of  it;  but  once  they  got 
the  upper  hand  the  Bavarians  set  fire  to  more  than  one  hun- 
dred houses."  The  picture  of  outrages  by  Germans  which  fol- 
lows may  be  countered  by  what  the  author  writes  in  another 
place  about  the  French  soldiers:  "The  frightful  scenes  at 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  111 

furthered  the  object  of  war  without  entailing  the 
loss  of  men.  Surprises,  laying  of  ambushes,  feigned 
attacks  and  retreats,  feigned  flight,  pretense  of  in- 
activity, spreading  of  false  news  as  to  one's  strength 
and  dispositions,  use  of  the  enemy's  parole  —  all  this 
was  permitted  and  prevalent  ever  since  war  begun, 
and  so  it  is  to-day.20 

As  to  the  limits  between  recognized  stratagems  and  what  are 
those  forms  of  cunning  which  are  reprehensible,  con-  tricks"? 
temporary  opinion,  national  culture,  the  practical 
needs  of  the  moment,  and  the  changing  military  sit- 
uation, are  so  influential  that  it  is  prima  facie  pro- 
portionately difficult  to  draw  any  recognized  limit, 
as  difficult  as  between  criminal  selfishness  and  tak- 
ing a  justifiable  advantage.  Some  forms  of  artifice 
are,  however,  under  all  circumstances  irreconcilable 
with  honorable  fighting,  especially  all  those  which 
take  the  form  of  faithlessness,  fraud,  and  breach  of 
one's  word.  Among  these  are  breach  of  a  safe-con- 
duct; of  a  free  retirement;  or  of  an  armistice,  in 
order  to  gain  by  a  surprise  attack  an  advantage  over 

the  taking  of  Paris  by  our  troops  at  the  end  of  May,  1871, 
may  enable  us  to  understand  what  violences  soldiers  allow 
themselves  to  be  drawn  into,  when  both  excited  and  exhausted 
by  the  conflict." 

20  "  One  makes  use  in  war  of  the  skin  of  the  lion  or  the  fox   The  apoph- 
indifferentlv.     Cunning  often  succeeds  where  force  would  fail;    thegm  of 

Frpdprlok 

it  is  therefore  absolutely  necessary  to  make  use  of  both ;  some-    the  Great, 
times  force  can  be  countered  by  force,  while  on  the  other  hand 
force  has  often  to  yield  to  cunning." —  Frederick  the  Great,  in 
his  General  Principles  of  War,  Art.  xi. 


112       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

the  enemy;  feigned  surrender  in  order  to  kill  the 
enemy  who  then  approach  unsuspiciously ;  misuse  of 
a  flag  of  truce,  or  of  the  Red  Cross,  in  order  to  se- 
cure one's  approach,  or  in  case  of  attack,  deliberate 
violation  of  a  solemnly  concluded  obligation,  e.g.,  of 
a  war  treaty;  incitement  to  crime,  such  as  murder 
of  the  enemy's  leaders,  incendiarism,  robbery,  and 
the  like.  This  kind  of  outrage  was  an  offense 
against  the  law  of  nations  even  in  the  earliest  times. 
The  natural  conscience  of  mankind  whose  'spirit  is 
chivalrously  alive  in  the  armies  of  all  civilized  States, 
has  branded  it  as  an  outrage  upon  human  right,  and 
enemies  who  in  such  a  public  manner  violate  the 
laws  of  honor  and  justice  have  been  regarded  as  no 
longer  on  an  equality.21 
of  raise  The  views  of  military  authorities  about  methods 

Uniforms.  r     i  •     i  •      i  i  <•     i  1-1 

of  this  kind,  as  also  01  those  which  are  on  the  border- 
line, frequently  differ  from  the  views  held  by  notable 
jurists.  So  also  the  putting  on  of  enemy's  uniforms, 
the  employment  of  enemy  or  neutral  flags  and  marks, 
with  the  object  of  deception  are  as  a  rule  declared 

i  21  Also  the  pretense  of  false  facts,  as,  for  example,  practised 

by  Murat  on  November  13th,  1805,  against  Prince  Auersperg, 
in  order  to  get  possession  of  the  passage  of  the  Danube  at 
Florisdorf ;  the  like  stratagem  which  a  few  days  later  Bagra- 
tion  practised  against  Murat  at  Schongraben ;  the  deceptions 
under  cover  of  their  word  of  honor  practised  by  the  French 
Generals  against  the  Prussian  leaders  in  1806  at  Prenzlau; 
these  are  stratagems  which  an  officer  in  the  field  would  scarcely 
dare  to  employ  to-day  without  being  branded  by  the  public 
opinion  of  Europe. 


The  Means  of  Conducting  War  113 

permissible  by  the  theory  of  the  laws  of  war,22  while 
military  writers  23  have  expressed  themselves  unan- 
imously against  them.  The  Hague  Conference 
has  adopted  the  latter  view  in  forbidding  the  employ- 
ment of  enemy's  uniforms  and  military  marks 
equally  with  the  misuse  of  flags  of  truce  and  of  the 
Bed  Cross.24 

Bribery  of  the  enemy's  subjects  with  the  object  of  The 
obtaining  military  advantages,  acceptance  of  offers  of  of  others 
treachery,  reception  of  deserters,  utilization  of  the 
discontented  elements  in  the  population,  support  of 
pretenders  and  the  like,  are  permissible,  indeed  in- 

22  In  the  most  recent  times  a  change  of  opinion  seems  to 
have  taken  place.     Bluntschli  in  his  time  holds  (sec.  565)  the 
use  of  the  distinguishing  marks  of  the  enemy's  army  —  uni- 
forms, standards,  and  flags  —  with  the  object  of  deception,  to 
be  a  doubtful  practise,  and  thinks  that  this  kind  of  deception 
should  not  extend  beyond  the  preparations  for  battle.     "In 
battle  the  opponents  should  engage  one  another  openly,  and 
should  not  fall  on  an  enemy  from  behind  in  the  mask  of  a 
friend  and  brother  in  arms."    The  Manual  of  the  Institute  of 
International  Law  goes  further.     It  says  in   8    (c  and  d) : 
"  II  est  interdit  d'attaquer  1'ennemi  en  dissimulant  les  signes 
distinctifs  de  la  force  arme'e;    d'user   indument  du  pavilion 
national,  des  insignes  militaires  ou  de  1'uniforme  de  1'cnnemi." 
The  Declaration  of  Brussels  altered  the  original  proposition, 
"  L'emploi  du  pavilion  national  ou  des  insignes  militaires  et 
de    1'uniforme    de    1'ennemi    est    interdit "    into    "  L'abus    du 
pavilion  national." 

23  Cp.  Boguslawski,  Der  kleine  Krieg,  1881,  pp.  26,  27. 

2*  [The  Hague  Regulations,  Art.  23,  to  which  Germany  was 
a  party,  declares  it  is  prohibited :  "  To  make  improper  use 
of  a  flag  of  truce,  the  national  flag,  or  military  ensigns  and 
the  enemy's  uniform,  as  well  as  the  distinctive  badges  of  the 
Geneva  Convention." — J.  H.  M.] 


114      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 


The  ngiy 
Adient,  and 

that  it  Is  a 

mistake  to 

be  too  "  nice 

minded." 


ternational  law  is  in  no  way  opposed  25  to  the  ex- 
Ana  murder     ploitation  of  the  crimes  of  third  parties  (assassina- 
te Arts.  e     tion,   incendiarism,   robbery,   and  the  like)    to  the 
"  prejudice  of  the  enemy. 

Considerations  of  chivalry,  generosity,  and  honor 
may  denounce  in  such  cases  a  hasty  and  unsparing 
exploitation  of  such  advantages  as  indecent  and 

° 

dishonorable,   but  law  which  is  less  touchy  allows 

^  » 

jt.26  "  The  ugly  and  inherently  immoral  aspect  of 
such  methods  cannot  affect  the  recognition  of  their 
lawfulness.  The  necessary  aim  of  war  gives  the  bel- 
ligerent the  right  and  imposes  upon  him,  according  to 
circumstances,  the  duty  not  to  let  slip  the  important, 
it  may  be  the  decisive,  advantages  to  be  gained  by 
such  means.27 

25  [This  represents  the  German  War  Book  in  its  most  dis- 
agreeable light,  and  is  casuistry  of  the  worst  kind.     There  are 
certain  things  on  which  International  Law  is  silent  because 
it  will  not  admit  the  possibility  of  their  existence.     As  Pro- 
fessor Holland  well  puts  it  (The  Laws  of  War  on  Land,  p.  61), 
in  reference  to  the  subject  of  reprisals  the  Hague  Conference 
"declined  to  seem  to  add  to  the  authority  of  a  practise  so 
repulsive  "  by  legislating  on  the  subject.     And  so  with  assassi- 
nation.    It  can  never  be  presumed  from  the  Hague  or  other 
international  agreements  that  what  is  not  expressly  forbidden 
is  thereby  approved.] 

26  [Professor]  Bluntschli,  Volkerrecht,  p.  316. 

2T  [Professor]  Luder,  Handbuch  des  Volkerrechts,  p.  90. 


.1  *  .  ,.    v  .n  t 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  generally  accepted  principle  that  in  war  one 
should  damore  harm  to  one's  enemy  than  the  object 
of  the  war  unconditionally  requires,  has  led  to  treat- 
ing the  wounded  and  sick  combatants  as  being  no 
longer  enemies,  but  merely  sick  men  who  are  to  be 
taken  care  of  and  as  much  as  possible  protected  from 
the  tragic  results  of  wounds  and  illness.  Although 
endeavors  to  protect  the  wounded  soldiers  from  ar- 
bitrary slaughter,  mutilation,  ill-treatment,  or  other 
brutalities  go  back  to  the  oldest  times,  yet  the  credit 
of  systematizing  these  endeavors  belongs  to  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  this  system  was  raised  to  the 
level  of  a  principle  of  international  law  by  the 
Geneva  Convention  of  1864. 

With  the  elevation  of  the  Geneva  Agreements  to 
the  level  of  laws  binding  peoples  and  armies,  the  Geneva  con- 

.   ,  vention. 

question  of  the  treatment  of  wounded  and  sick  com- 
batants, as  well  as  that  of  the  persons  devoted  to  the 
healing  and  care  of  them,  is  separated  from  the 
usages  of  war.  Moreover,  arAl  discussion  of  the 
form  of  this  international  law  must  be  regarded  from 


The 

the  slttie0 

field.5' 


116      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

the  military  point  of  view  as  aimless  and  unprofit- 
able. The  soldier  may  still  be  convinced  that  some 
of  the  Articles  are  capable  of  improvement,  that 
others  need  supplementing,  and  that  yet  others  should 
be  suppressed,  but  he  has  not  the  right  to  deviate 
from  the  stipulations;  it  is  his  duty  to  contribute  as 
far  as  he  can  to  the  observance  of  the  whole  code. 

No  notice  is  taken  in  the  Geneva  Convention  of 
the  question  of  the  protection  of  fallen  or  wounded 
combatants  from  the  front,  from,  the  rabble  usually 
known  as  "  The  Hyenas  of  the  battlefield,"  who  are 
accustomed  to  rob,  ill-treat,  or  slay  soldiers  lying 
defenseless  on  the  field  of  battle.  This  is  a  matter 
left  to  the  initiative  of  the  troops.  Persons  of  this 
kind,  whether  they  be  soldiers  or  not,  are  undoubtedly 
to  be  dealt  with  in  the  sternest  possible  manner. 


CHAPTER  IV 


HOSTTLE  armies  are  in  frequent  intercourse  with  one  nags  of 
another.  This  takes;  place  so  long  as  it  is  practised 
openly,  that  is  to  say,  with  the  permission  of  the 
commanders  on  both  sides,  by  means  of  bearers  of 
flags  of  truce.  In  this  class  are  included  those  who 
have  to  conduct  the  official  intercourse  between  the 
belligerent  armies  or  divisions  thereof,  and  who  ap- 
pear as  authorized  envoys  of  one  army  to  the  other,  in 
order  to  conduct  negotiations  and  to  transmit  com- 
munications. As  to  the  treatment  of  bearers  of 
flags  of  truce  there  exist  regular  usages  of  war,  an 
intimate  acquaintance  with  which  is  of  the  highest 
practical  importance.  This  knowledge  is  not  merely 
indispensable  for  the  higher  officers,  but  also  for  all 
inferior  officers,  and  to  a  certain  extent  for  the  private 
in  the  ranks. 

Since  a  certain  degree  of  intercourse  between  the 
two  belligerents  is  unavoidable,  and  indeed  desirable, 
the  assurance  of  this  intercourse  is  in  the  interests 
of  both  parties;  it  has  held  good  as  a  custom  from 

the  earliest  times,  and  even  among  uncivilized  peo- 

117 


118      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

pie,  whereby  these  envoys  and  their  assistants 
(trumpeter,  drummer,  interpreter,  and  orderly)  are 
to  be  regarded  as  inviolable;  a  custom  which  pro- 
ceeds on  the  presumption  that  these  persons,  al- 
though drawn  from'  the  ranks  of  the  combatants,  are 
no  longer,  during  the  performance  of  these  duties, 
to  be  regarded  as  active  belligerents.  They  must, 
therefore,  neither  be  shot  nor  captured;  on  the  con- 
trary, everything  must  be  done  to  assure  the  perform- 
ance of  their  task  and  to  permit  their  return  on  its 
conclusion. 

But  it  is  a  fundamental  condition  of  this  pro' 
cedure : 

1.  That  the  envoy  be  quite  distinguishable  as  such  by 

means  of  universally  recognized  and  well-known 
marks;  distinguishable  both  by  sight  and  by 
hearing  (flags  of  truce,  white  flags,  or,  if  need 
be,  white  pocket-handkerchiefs)  and  signals 
(horns  or  bugles). 

2.  That  the  envoy  behave  peaceably,  and 

3.  That  he  does  not  abuse  his  position  in  order  to 

commit  any  unlawful  act. 

Of  course  any  contravention  of  the  last  two  con- 
ditions puts  an  end  to  his  inviolability ;  it  may  justify 
his  immediate  capture,  and,  in  extreme  cases  (espi- 
onage, hatching  of  plots),  his  condemnation  by  mili- 
tary law.  Should  the  envoy  abuse  his  mission  for 
purposes  of  observation,  whereby  the  army  he  is 


Intercourse  Between  Belligerent  Armies       119 

visiting  is  imperiled,  then  also  he  may  be  detained, 
but  not  longer  than  is  necessary.  In  all  cases  of 
this  kind  it  is  recommended  that  prompt  and  de- 
tailed information  be  furnished  to  the  head  of  the 
other  army. 

It  is  the  right  of  every  army : 

1.  To  accept  or  to  refuse  such  envoys.     An  envoy  who 

is  not  received  must  immediately  rejoin  his  own 
army ;  he  must  not,  of  course,  be  shot  at  on  his 
way. 

2.  To  declare  that  it  will  not  during  a  fixed  period 

entertain  any  envoys.  Should  any  appear  in 
spite  of  this  declaration;  they  cannot  claim  to 
be  inviolable. 

3.  To  determine  in  what  forms  and  under  what  pre- 

cautions envoys  shall  be  received.  The  envoys 
have  to  submit  to  any  commands  even  though 
entailing  personal  inconvenience  such  as  blind- 
folding or  going  out  of  their  way  on  coming  or 
returning,  and  such  like. 

The  observance  of  certain  forms  in  the  reception  of  The 

£  .,  ,    .  Etiquette  of 

envoys  is  01  the  greatest  importance,  as  a  parley  may  Flags  of 
serve  as  a  cloak  for  obtaining  information  or  for  the 
temporary  interruption  of  hostilities  and  the  like. 
Such  a  danger  is  particularly  likely  to  occur  if  the 
combatants  have  been  facing  one  another,  as  in  the 
case  of  a  war  of  positions,  for  a  long  time  without 
any  particular  result.  These  forms  are  also  impor- 
tant because  their  non-observance,  as  experience 


120       The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

shows,  gives  rise  to  recrimination  and  charges  of 
violation  of  the  usages  of  war.  The  following  may, 
therefore,  be  put  forward  as  the  chief  rules  for  the 
behavior  of  an  envoy  and  as  the  forms  to  be  observed 
in  his  reception. 

1.  The  envoy  (who  is  usually  selected  as  being  a  man 
skilled  in  languages  and  the  rules,  and  is 
mounted  on  horseback)  makes  for  the  enemy's 
outpost  or  their  nearest  detachment,  furnished 
with  the  necessary  authorization,  in  the  company 
of  a  trumpeter  and  a  flag-bearer  on  horseback. 
If  the  distance  between  the  two  outposts  of  the 
respective  lines  is  very  small,  then  the  envoy 
may  go  on  foot  in  the  company  of  a  bugler  or  a 
drummer. 

HIS  aP-  2.  When  he  is  near  enough  to  the  enemy's  outposts  or 

their  lines  to  be  seen  and  heard,  he  has  the 
trumpet  or  bugle  blown  and  the  white  flag  un- 
furled by  the  bearer.  The  bearer  will  seek  to 
attract  the  attention  of  the  enemy's  outposts  or 
detachments  whom  he  has  approached,  by  waving 
the  flag  to  and  fro. 

From  this  moment  the  envoy  and  his  company  are 
inviolable,  in  virtue  of  a  general  usage  of  war. 
The  appearance  of  a  flag  of  truce  in  the  middle 
of  a  fight,  however,  binds  no  one  to  cease  fire. 
Only  the  envoy  and  his  companions  are  not  to 
be  shot  at. 

Thechai-  3.  The  envoy  now  advances  with  his  escort  at  a  slow 

"Werda?"  walk  to  the  nearest  posted  officer.     He  must 

obey  the  challenge  of  the  enemy's  outposts  and 
patrol. 


Intercourse  Between  Belligerent  Armies       121 

4.  Since  it  is  not  befitting  to  receive  an  envoy  at  just  HIS  recep- 

that  place  which  he  prefers,  he  has  to  be  ready  tlon< 
to  be  referred  to  a  particular  place  of  admission. 
He  must  keep  close  to  the  way  prescribed  for 
him.  It  is  advisable  for  the  enemy  whenever 
this  is  possible  to  give  the  envoy  an  escort  on 
the  way. 

5.  On  arriving  at  the  place  indicated,  the  envoy  dis-  He  dis- 

mounts along  with  his  attendants ;  leaves  them  at 
a  moderate  distance  behind  him,  and  proceeds  on 
foot  to  the  officer  on  duty,  or  highest  in  com- 
mand, at  that  place,  in  order  to  make  his  wishes 
known. 

6.  Intercourse  with  the  enemy's  officer  must  be  courte-  Let  his  Yea 

ously  conducted.  The  envoy  has  always  to  bear  his^ay.'Na 
in  mind  the  discharge  of  his  mission,  to  study 
the  greatest  circumspection  in  his  conversations, 
neither  to  attempt  to  sound  the  enemy  or  to  al- 
low himself  to  be  sounded.  .  .  .  The  best  thing 
is  to  refuse  to  enter  into  any  conversation  on 
military  matters  beforehand. 

7.  For  less  important  affairs  the  officer  at  the  place  The  duty  of 

of  admission  will  possess  the  necessary  instruc-  "enter?1" 
tions,  in  order  either  to  discharge  them  himself, 
or  to  promise  their  discharge  in  a  fixed  period. 
But  in  most  cases  the  decision  of  a  superior  will 
have  to  be  taken;  in  this  case  the  envoy  has  to 
wait  until  the  latter  arrives. 

8.  If  the  envoy  has  a  commission  to  deal  personally 

with  the  Commander-in-Chief  or  a  high  officer, 
or  if  the  officer  on  duty  at  the  place  of  admis- 
sion considers  it  desirable  for  any  reason  to  send 
the  envoy  back,  then,  if  it  be  necessary,  the  eyes 


122       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

of  the  envoy  may  be  blindfolded;  to  take  away 
his  weapons  is  hardly  necessary.  If  the  officer 
at  the  place  of  admission  is  in  any  doubt  what 
attitude  to  adopt  towards  the  requests  of  the  en- 
voy, he  will  for  the  time  being  detain  him  at  his 
post,  and  send  an  intimation  to  his  immediate 
superior  in  case  the  affair  appears  to  him  of  par- 
ticular importance,  and  at  the  same  time  to  the 
particular  officer  to  whom  the  envoy  is  or  should 
be  sent. 

9.  If  an  envoy  will  not  wait,  he  may  be  permitted, 
according  to  circumstances,  to  return  to  his  own 
army  if  the  observation  made  by  him  or  any 
communications  received  can  no  longer  do  any 
harm. 

From  the  foregoing  it  follows  that  intercourse  with 
the  envoys  of  an  enemy  presupposes  detailed  instruc- 
tions and  a  certain  intelligence  on  the  part  of  the 
officers  and  men  if  it  is  to  proceed  peaceably.  But 
before  all  things  it  must  be  made  clear  to  the  men  that 
the  intentional  wounding  or  killing  of  an  envoy  is  a 
serious  violation  of  international  law,  and  that  even 
an  unfortunate  accident!  which  leads  to  such  a  viola- 
tion may  have  the  most  disagreeable  consequences. 

A  despatch  of  Bismarck's  of  January  9th,  1871, 
demonstrates  by  express  mention  of  their  names,  that 
twenty-one  German  envoys  were  shot  by  French  sol- 
diers while  engaged  on  their  mission.  Ignorance  and 
defective  teaching  of  the  troops  may  have  been  the 


Intercourse  Between  Belligerent  Armies       123 

principal  reason  for  this  none  too  excusable  behavior. 
In  many  cases  transgressions  on  the  part  of  the 
rawer  elements  of  the  army  may  have  occurred,  as 
has  been  many  times  offered  as  an  excuse  in  higher 
quarters.  Nevertheless,  this  state  of  affairs  makes 
clear  the  necessity  of  detailed  instruction  and  a  sharp 
supervision  of  the  troops  by  the  officers. 


CHAPTER  Y 

SCOUTS    AND   SPIES 

The  scent.  SCOUTING  resolves  itself  into  a  question  of  getting 
possession  of  important  information  about  the  posi- 
tion, strength,  plans,  etc.,  of  the  enemy,  and  thereby 
promoting  the  success  of  one's  own  side.  The  exist- 
ence of  scouting  has  been  closely  bound  up  with  war- 
fare from  the  earliest  times;  it  is  to  be  regarded  as 
an  indispensable  means  of  warfare  and  consequently 
is  undoubtedly  permissible.  If  the  scouting  takes 
place  publicly  by  recognizable  combatants  then  it  is 
a  perfectly  regular  form  of  activity,  against  which 
the  enemy  can  only  use  the  regular  means  of  defense, 
that  is  to  say,  killing  in  battle,  and  capture.  If  the 
scouting  takes  the  form  of  secret  or  surreptitious 
The  spy  methods,  then  it  is  espionage,  and  is  liable  to  par- 
shrift.88  ticularly  severe  and  ruthless  measures  by  way  of 
precaution  and  exemplary  punishment  —  usually 
death  by  shooting  or  hanging.  This  severe  punish- 
ment is  not  inflicted  on  account  of  dishonorable  dis- 
position on  the  part  of  the  spy  —  there  need  exist 
nothing  of  the  kind,  and  the  motive  for  the  espi- 
onage may  arise  from  the  highest  patriotism  and 

124 


Scouts  and  Spies  125 

sentiment  of  military  duty  quite  as  often  as  from 
avarice  and  dishonorable  cupidity  *-  -  but  principally 
on  account  of  the  particular  danger  which  lies  in 
such  secret  methods.  It  is  as  it  were  a  question  of 
self-defense. 

Having  regard  to  this  severe  punishment  intro- 
duced by  the  usages  of  war,  it  is  necessary  to  define 
the  conception  of  espionage  and  of  spies  as  precisely 
as  possible. 

A  spy  was  defined  by  the  German  army  staff  in  what  is  a 
1870  as  one  "  who  seeks  to  discover  by  clandestine 
methods,  in  order  to  favor  the  enemy,  the  position  of 
troops,  camps,  etc. ;  on  the  other  hand  enemies  who 
are  soldiers  are  only  to  be  regarded  as  spies  if  they 
have  violated  the  rules  of  military  usages,  by  de- 
nial or  concealment  of  their  military  character." 

The  Brussels  Declaration  of  1874  defines  the  con- 
ception as  follows :  "  By  a  spy  is  to  be  understood 
he  who  clandestinely  or  by  illicit  pretenses  enters  or 
attempts  to  enter  into  places  in  the  possession  of  the 
enemy  with  the  intention  of  obtaining  information 

i  To  judge  espionage  with  discrimination  according  to  mo- 
tives does  not  seem  to  be  feasible  in  war.  "  Whether  it  be  a 
patriot  who  devotes  himself,  or  a  wretch  who  sells  himself, 
the  danger  they  run  at  the  hands  of  the  enemy  will  be  the 
same.  One  will  respect  the  first  and  despise  the  second,  but 
one  will  shoot  both." —  Quelle  I,  126.  This  principle  is  very 
ancient.  As  early  as  1780  a  North- American  court-martial 
condemned  Major  Andre1,  an  Englishman,  to  death  by  hanging, 
and  in  vain  did  the  English  Generals  intercede  for  him,  in 
vain  did  he  plead  himself,  that  he  be  shot  as  a  soldier. 


126 

to  be  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  other  side." 
The  Hague  Conference  puts  it  in  the  same  way. 

The  emphasis  in  both  declarations  is  to  be  laid  on 
the  idea  of  "  secrecy  "  or  "  deception."  If  regular 
combatants  make  enquiries  in  this  fashion,  for  ex- 
ample in  disguise,  then  they  also  come  under  the 
category  of  spies,  and  can  lawfully  be  treated  as 
such.  Whether  the  espionage  was  successful  or  not 
makes  no  difference.  The  motive  which  has 
prompted  the  spy  to  accept  his  commission,  whether 
noble  or  ignoble,  is,  as  we  have  already  said,  indif- 
ferent; likewise,  whether  he  has  acted  on  his  own 
impulse  or  under  a  commission  from  his  own  State 
or  army.  The  military  jurisdiction  in  this  matter 
cuts  across  the  territorial  principle  and  that  of  alle- 
giance, in  that  it  makes  no  difference  whether  the  spy 
is  the  subject  of  the  belligerent  country  or  of  an- 
other State. 

It  is  desirable  that  the  heavy  penalty  which  the 
spy  incurs  should  be  the  subject  not  of  mere  suspicion 
but  of  actual  proof  of  existence  of  the  offense,  by 
means  of  a  trial,  however  summary  (if  the  swift 
course  of  the  war  permits),  and  therefore  the  death 
penalty  will  not  be  enforced  without  being  preceded 
by  a  judgment. 

Participation  in  espionage,  favoring  it,  harboring 
a  spy,  are  equally  punishable  with  espionage  itself. 


CHAPTER  VI 

DESERTERS  AND  RENEGADES 

THE  difference  between  these  two  is  this  —  the  first  The  Deserter 

...  .  Is  faithless 

class  are  untrue  to  the  colors,  their  intention  being  to  and  the 

Renegade 

withdraw  altogether  from  the  conflict,  to  leave  the 
seat  of  war,  and,  it  may  be,  to  escape  into  a  country 
outside  it ;  but  the  second  class  go  over  to  the  enemy 
in  order  to  fight  in  his  ranks  against  their  former 
comrades.  According  to  the  general  usages  of  war, 
deserters  and  renegades,  if  they  are  caught,  are  to 
be  subjected  to  martial  law  and  may  be  punished 
with  death.'/* 

Although  some  exponents  of  the  laws  of  war  claim 
that  deserters  and  renegades  should  be  handed  back 
to  one's  opponent,  and  on  the  other  hand  exactly  the 
opposite  is  insisted  on  by  others,  namely,  the  obliga- 
tion to  accept  them  —  all  we  can  say  is  that  a  soldier 
cannot  admit  any  such  obligation. 

Deserters  and  renegades  weaken  the  power  of  the  But  both 
enemy,  and  therefore  to  hand  them  over  is  not  in  the  useful, 
interest  of  the  opposite  party,  and  as  for  the  right 
to  accept  them  or  reject  them,  that  is  a  matter  for 
one's  own  decision. 

127     * 


CHAPTER  VII 

CIVILIANS   IN    THE    TKAIN    OF   AH   AEMY 

"Follow-  IN  the  train  of  an  army  it  is  usual  to  find,  tem- 
porarily or  permanently,  a  mass  of  civilians  who  are 
indispensable  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  wants  of 
officers  and  soldiers  or  to  the  connection  of  the  army 
with  the  native  population.  To  this  category  belong 
all  kinds  of  contractors,  carriers  of  charitable  gifts, 
artists,  and  the  like,  and,  above  all,  newspaper  cor- 
respondents whether  native  or  foreign.  If  they  fall 
into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  they  have  the  right, 
should  their  detention  appear  desirable,  to  be  treated 
as  prisoners  of  war,  assuming  that  they  are  in  pos- 
session of  an  adequate  authorization. 

For  all  these  individuals,  therefore,  the  possession 
of  a  pass  issued  by  the  military  authorities  concerned, 
in  accordance  with  the  forms  required  by  interna- 
tional intercourse,  is  an  indispensable  necessity,  in 
order  that  in  the  case  of  a  brush  with  the  enemy,  or 
of  their  being  taken  captive  they  may  be  recognized 
as  occupying  a  passive  position  and  may  not  be 
treated  as  spies.1 

i  The  want  of  an  adequate  authorization  led  in  1874  to  the 
shooting  of  the  Prussian  newspaper  correspondent  Captain 
Schmidt  by  the  Carlists,  which  raised  a  great  outcry.  Schmidt 

128 


Civilians  in  the  Train  of  an  Army  129 

In  the  grant  of  these  authorizations  the  utmost 
circumspection  should  be  shown  by  the  military  au- 
thorities; this  privilege  should  only  be  extended  to 
those  whose  position,  character,  and  intentions  are 
fully  known,  or  for  whom  trustworthy  persons  will 
act  as  sureties. 

This  circumspection  must  be  observed  most  scrupu-  The  war 

,         ,          .  ,  £  ,  Correspond- 

lously    in    the    case    01    newspaper    correspondents  ent:hisim- 

,,  i, .  portance. 

wrhether   native   or  loreign.     Since  the   component  HIS  presence 

r  Is  desirable. 

parts  of  a  modern  army  are  drawn  from  all  grades 
of  the  population,  the  intervention  of  the  Press  for 
the  purpose  of  intellectual  intercourse  between  the 
army  and  the  population  at  home  can  no  longer  be 
dispensed  with.  The  army  also  derives  great  ad- 
vantages from  this  intellectual  intercourse;  it  has 
had  to  thank  the  stimulus  of  the  Press  in  recent  cam- 
paigns for  an  unbroken  chain  of  benefits,  quite  apart 
from  the  fact  that  news  of  the  war  in  the  newspapers 
is  a  necessity  for  every  soldier.  The  importance  of 
this  intervention,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  dangers 
and  disadvantages  which  may  arise  from  its  misuse, 
make  it  obviously  necessary  that  the  military  authori- 
ties should  control  the  whole  of  the  Press  when  in 

was  armed  with  a  revolver,  with  maps  of  the  seat  of  war,  and 
also  with  plans  and  sketches  of  the  Carlists'  positions,  as 
against  which  he  had  only  an  ordinary  German  passport  as  a 
Prussian  Captain  and  was  seized  within  the  Carlists'  outpost, 
and  since  he  could  not  defend  himself,  verbally,  on  account  of 
his  ignorance  of  the  Spanish  language,  he  was  convicted  as  a 
spy  by  court-martial  and  shot. 


130      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

the  field.  In  what  follows  we  shall  briefly  indicate 
the  chief  rules  which  are  customary,  in  the  modern 
usages  of  war,  as  regards  giving  permission  to  news- 
paper correspondents. 

The  weal  The  first  thing  necessary  in  a  war  correspondent 

War  Corre- 
spondent.        19  a  sense  01  honor ;  in  other  words,  he  must  be  trust' 

worthy.  Only  a  man  who  is  known  to  be  absolutely 
trustworthy,  or  who  can  produce  a  most  precise  of- 
ficial certificate  or  references  from  unimpeachable 
persons,  can  be  granted  permission  to  attach  him- 
self to  headquarters. 

An  honorable  correspondent  will  be  anxious  to 
adhere  closely  to  the  duties  he  owes  to  his  paper  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  demands  of  the  army  whose 
hospitality  he  enjoys  on  the  other.  To  do  both  is 
not  always  easy,  and  in  many  cases  tact  and  refine- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  correspondent  can  alone  in- 
dicate the  right  course;  a  censorship  is  proved  by 
experience  to  be  of  little  use;  the  certificates  and 
recommendations  required  must  therefore  be  explicit 
as  to  the  possession  of  these  qualities  by  the  appli- 
cant; and  according  as  he  possesses  them  or  not  his 
personal  position  at  headquarters  and  the  degree  of 
support  extended  to  him  in  the  discharge  of  his  du- 
ties will  be  decided. 

It  is  therefore  undoubtedly  in  the  interest  of  the 
army  as  of  the  Press,  that  the  latter  shall  only  des- 


Civilians  in  the  Train  of  an  Army  131 

patch  such  representatives  as  really  are  equal  to  the 
high  demands  which  the  profession  of  correspondent 
requires. 

The  correspondent  admitted  on  the  strength  of  The  ati- 

i  •  •       quetteof 

satisfactory  pledges  has  therefore  to  promise  on  his  theWar 

Correspond- 

word  of  honor  to  abide  by  the  following  obligations :  ent- 

1.  To  spread  no  news  as  to  the  disposition,  numbers, 

or  movements  of  troops,  and,  moreover,  the  in- 
tentions and  plans  of  the  staff,  unless  he  has 
permission  to  publish  them.  (This  concerns 
principally  correspondents  of  foreign  newspapers 
since  one's  own  newspapers  are  already  subject  to 
a  prohibition  of  this  kind  by  the  Imperial  Press 
Law  of  April  7th,  1874.) 

2.  To  report  himself  on  arrival  at  the  headquarters  of 

a  division  immediately  to  the  commanding  offi- 
cer, and  to  ask  his  permission  to  stay,  and  to  re- 
move himself  immediately  and  without  making 
difficulties  if  the  o.c.  deems  his  presence  inex- 
pedient on  military  grounds. 

3.  To  carry  with  him  always,  and  to  produce  on  de- 

mand, his  authorization  (certificate,  armlet, 
photograph)  and  his  pass  for  horses,  transport, 
and  servants. 

4.  To  take  care  that  his  correspondence  and  articles 

are  submitted  at  headquarters. 

5.  To  carry  out  all  instructions  of  the  officers  at  head- 

quarters who  supervise  the  press. 

Contraventions  of  the  orders  from  headquarters, 
indiscretions,  and  tactlessness,  are  punished  in  less 


132 

serious  cases  with  a  caution,  in  grave  cases  by  ex- 
pulsion; where  the  behavior  of  the  correspondent  or 
his  correspondence  has  not  amounted  to  a  military 
offense,  and  is  therefore  not  punishable  by  martial 
law. 

A  journalist  who  has  been  expelled  not  only  loses 
his  privileges  but  also  his  passive  character;  and  if 
he  disregards  his  exclusion  he  will  be  held  responsi- 
ble. 

Foreign  journalists  are  subject  to  the  same  obliga- 
tions; they  must  expressly  recognize  their  authority 
and  in  case  of  punishment  cannot  claim  any  personal 
immunity.2 

Journalists  who  accompany  the  army  without  the 
permission  of  the  staff,  and  whose  reports  therefore 
cannot  be  subject  to  military  control,  are  to  be  pro- 
ceeded against  with  inexorable  severity.  They  are 
to  be  expelled  ruthlessly  as  dangerous,  since  they 
only  get  in  the  way  of  the  troops  and  devour  their 
subsistence,  and  may  under  the  mask  of  friendship 
do  harm  to  the  army. 

2  In  the  Egyptian  Campaign  in  1882  the  English  War  Office 
published  the  following  regulations  for  newspaper  correspond- 
ents. [The  translator  does  not  think  it  necessary  to  repro- 
duce these.] 


CHAPTEE  VIII 

THE    EXTERNAL,    MABK    OF    INVIOLABILITY 

THOSE  persons  and  objects  who  in  war  are  to  be  HOW  to  ten 
treated  as  inviolable  must  be  recognizable  by  some  batant. 
external  mark.     Such  is  the  so-called  Geneva  Cross 
(a  red  cross  on  a  white  ground)  introduced  by  inter- 
national agreement.1 

Attention  is  to  be  attracted  in  the  case  of  persons 
by  armlets,  in  the  case  of  buildings  by  flags,  in  the 
case  of  wagons  and  other  objects  by  a  corresponding 
paint  mark. 

If  the  mark  is  to  receive  adequate  respect  it  is 
essential : 

1.  That  it  should  be  clearly  visible  and  recognizable. 

2.  That  it  should  only  be  worn  by  such  persons  or 

attached  to  such  objects  as  can  lawfully  claim  it. 

As  to  1.  Banners  and  flags  must  be  sufficiently 
large  to  be  both  distinguishable  and  recognizable  at 
a  far  distance;  they  are  to  be  so  attached  that  they 

i  In  Turkey,  in  place  of  the  Red  Cross  a  red  half-moon  was 
introduced,  and  was  correspondingly  respected  by  the  Russians 
in  the  campaign  of  1877.  Japan,  on  the  contrary,  has  waived 
its  original  objection  to  the  cross. 

133 


134      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

will  not  be  masked  by  any  national  flag  that  may  be 
near  them,  otherwise  unintentional  violations  will 
be  unavoidable. 

As  to  2.  Abuse  will  result  in  the  protective  mark 
being  no  longer  respected,  and  a  further  result  would 
be  to  render  illusory,  and  to  endanger,  the  whole  of 
the  Geneva  Convention.  Measures  must  therefore 
be  taken  to  prevent  such  abuses  and  to  require  every 
member  of  the  army  to  draw  attention  to  any  one 
who  wears  these  marks  without  being  entitled  to  do 
so.2 

Regulations  of  international  law  to  prevent  and 
punish  misuse  of  the  Red  Cross  do  not  exist.3 

2  That  in  the  war  of  1870  the  Red  Cross  was  frequently 
abused  on  the  French  side  is  well  known,  and  has  been  the 
subject  of  documentary  proof.  The  escape  of  Bourbaki  from 
Metz,  under  cover  of  the  misuse  of  the  Geneva  Convention, 
proves  that  even  in  the  highest  circles  people  were  not  clear 
as  to  the  binding  obligation  of  International  Regulations,  and 
disregarded  them  in  the  most  frivolous  manner. 

a  [But  the  English  legislature  has,  by  the  Geneva  Conven- 
tion Act,  1911  (1  and  2  Geo.  V,  c.  20)  made  it  a  statutory 
offense,  punishable  on  summary  conviction  by  a  fine  not  ex- 
ceeding £10,  to  use  the  heraldic  emblem  of  the  Red  Cross  or 
the  words  "  Red  Cross "  for  any  purpose  whatsoever,  if  the 
person  so  using  it  has  not  the  authority  of  the  Army  Council 
for  doing  so. —  J.  H.  M.] 


CHAPTER  IX 

WAR    TBEATIES 

IN  the  following  pages  we  have  only  to  do  with  war  That  Faith 

...        ,1  .1      .     •  i  must  be  kept 

treaties  in  the  narrower  sense,  that  is  such  as  are  eveuwithan 
concluded  during  the  war  itself  and  have  as  their 
object  either  the  regulation  of  certain  relations  dur- 
ing the  period  of  the  war,  or  only  an  isolated  and 
temporary  measure.  It  is  a  principle  of  all  such 
treaties  that:  Etiam  Zosti  fides  servanda.  Every 
agreement  is  to  be  strictly  observed  by  both  sides  in 
the  spirit  and  in  the  letter.  Should  this  rule  not 
be  observed  by  one  side  then  the  other  has  the  right 
to  regard  the  treaty  as  denounced. 

How  a  treaty  is  to  be  concluded  depends  on  the 
discretion  of  those  who  conclude  it.  Drafts  or 
models  of  treaties  do  not  exist. 

A, —  Treaties  of  Exchange 

These  have  for  their  object  the  mutual  discharge  Exchange  of 
or  exchange  of  prisoners  of  war.     Whether  the  op- 
ponent will  agree  to  an  offer  of  this  kind  or  not,  de- 
pends entirely  upon  himself.  « 

The  usual  stipulation  is:     An  equal  number  on 

135 


136       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

both  sides.  That  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that 
a  surplus  of  prisoners  on  the  one  side  need  not  be 
handed  over. 

The  restitution  of  a  greater  number  of  common 
soldiers  against  officers  can  be  stipulated;  in  that 
case,  the  relative  value  of  different  grades  must  be 
precisely  fixed  in  the  treaty. 

B, —  Treaties  of  Capitulation 
capituia-  The  object  of  these  is  the  surrender  of  fortresses  or 

tions  —  they  .  .. 

cannot  be  too   strong  places  as  also  01  troops  in  the  open  field. 

meticulous.  .  i  /• 

Here  again  there  can  be  no  talk  of  a  generally  ac- 
cepted model.  The  usages  of  war  have,  however, 
displayed  some  rules  for  capitulations,  the  observ- 
ance of  which  is  to  be  recommended : 

1.  Before  any  capitulation  is  concluded,  the  authority 

of  the  Commander  who  concludes  it  should  be 
formally  and  unequivocally  authenticated.  How 
necessary  a  precaution  of  this  kind  is,  is  shown 
by  the  capitulations  of  Eapp  at  Danzig,  and  of 
Gouvion  St.  Cyr  at  Dresden,  in  1813,  which  were 
actually  annulled  by  the  refusal  of  the  General 
Staff  of  the  Allies  to  ratify  them.  At  the  trial 
L,  of  Bazaine  the  indictment  by  General  Kiviere 
denied  the  title  of  the  Marshal  to  conclude  a 
capitulation. 

2.  If  one  of  the  parties  to  the  treaty  makes  it  a  con- 

dition that  the  confirmation  of  the  monarch,  or 
the  Commander-in-Chief,  or  even  the  national 
assembly  is  to  be  obtained,  then  this  circumstance 


^^y    ' 
^< 


t    L 


War  Treaties  137 

must  be  made  quite  clear.  Also  care  is  to  be 
taken  that  in  the  event  of  ratification  being  re- 
fused every  advantage  that  might  arise  from  an 
ambiguous  proceeding  on  the  part  of  one  op- 
ponent, be  made  impossible. 

3.  The  chief  effect  of  a  capitulation  is  to  prevent  that 
portion  of  the  enemy's  force  which  capitulates 
from  taking  any  part  in  the  conflict  during  the 
rest  of  the  war,  or  it  may  be  for  a  fixed  period. 
The  fate  of  the  capitulating  troops  or  of  the  sur- 
rendered fortress  differs  in  different  cases.1  In 

i  How  different  the  conditions  of  capitulation  may  be  the 
following  examples  will  show: 

Sedan :  ( 1 )  The  French  army  surrender  as  prisoners  of 
war.  (2)  In  consideration  of  the  brave  defense  all  Generals, 
Officers,  and  Officials  occupying  the  rank  of  Officers,  will  re- 
ceive their  freedom  so  soon  as  they  give  their  word  of  honor 
in  writing  not  to  take  up  arms  again  until  the  end  of  the 
war,  and  not  to  behave  in  a  manner  prejudicial  to  the  inter- 
ests of  Germany.  The  officers  and  officials  who  accept  these 
conditions  are  to  keep  their  arms  and  their  own  personal 
effects.  (3)  All  arms  and  all  war  material  consisting  of 
flags,  eagles,  cannons,  munitions,  etc.,  are  to  be  surrendered 
and  to  be  handed  over  by  a  French  military  commission  to 
German  commissioners.  (4)  The  fortress  of  Sedan  is  to  be 
immediately  placed  at  the  disposition  (of  the  Germans)  ex- 
actly as  it  stands.  (5)  The  officers  who  have  refused  the  obli- 
gation not  to  take  up  arms  again,  as  well  as  the  troops,  shall 
be  disarmed  and  organized  according  to  their  regiments  or 
corps  to  go  over  in  military  fashion.  The  medical  staff  are 
without  exception  to  remain  behind  to  look  after  the  wounded. 

Metz:  The  capitulation  of  Metz  allowed  the  disarmed  sol- 
diers to  keep  their  knapsacks,  effects,  and  camp  equipment, 
and  allowed  the  officers  who  preferred  to  go  into  captivity, 
rather  than  give  their  word  of  honor,  to  take  with  them  their 
sworda,  or  sabers,  and  their  personal  property. 

Belf ort :     The  garrison  were  to  receive  all  the  honors  of  war, 


138       The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

the  Treaty  of  Capitulation  every  condition 
agreed  upon  both  as  to  time  and  manner  must 
be  expressed  in  precise  and  unequivocable  words. 
Conditions  which  violate  the  military  honor  of 
those  capitulated  are  not  permissible  according 
to  modern  views.  Also,  if  the  capitulation  is  an 
unconditional  one  or,  to  use  the  old  formula,  is 
"  at  discretion/'  the  victor  does  not  thereby,  ac- 
cording to  the  modern  laws  of  war,  acquire  a 
right  of  life  and  death  over  the  persons  capitu- 
lating. 
4.  Obligations  which  are  contrary  to  the  laws  of  na^ 

to  keep  their  arms,  their  transport,  and  their  war  material. 
Only  the  fortress  material  was  to  be  surrendered. 

Bitsch  ( concluded  after  the  settlement  of  peace )  :  ( 1 )  The 
garrison  retires  with  all  the  honors  of  war,  arms,  banners,  ar- 
tillery, and  field  pieces.  (2)  As  to  siege  material  and  muni-' 
tions  of  war  a  double  inventory  is  to  be  prepared.  (3)  In  the 
same  way  an  inventory  is  to  be  taken  of  administrative  mate- 
rial. (4)  The  material  referred  to  in  Articles  2  and  3  is  to 
be  handed  over  to  the  Commandant  of  the  German  forces.  (5) 
The  archives  of  the  fortress,  with  the  exception  of  the  Com- 
mandant's own  register,  are  left  behind.  (6)  The  customs 
officers  are  to  be  disarmed  and  discharged  to  their  own  homes. 
(7)  The  canteen-keepers  who  wish  to  depart  in  the  ordinary 
way  receive  from  the  local  commandant  a  pass  vis6d  by  the  Ger- 
man local  authorities.  (8)  The  local  Commandant  remains 
after  the  departure  of  the  troops  at  the  disposal  of  the  Ger- 
man higher  authorities  till  the  final  settlement;  he  binds  him- 
self on  his  word  of  honor  not  to  leave  the  fortress.  (9)  The 
troops  are  transported  with  their  horses  and  baggage  by  the 
railroad.  (10)  The  baggage  left  behind  in  Bitsch  by  the  offi- 
cers of  the  1st  and  5th  Corps  will  be  sent  later  to  an  appointed 
place  in  France,  two  non-commissioned  officers  remain  to  guard 
it  and  later  to  send  it  back  under  their  supervision. 

Nisch     (January    10th,    1878)  :     [The   translator    has    not 
thought  it  necessary  to  reproduce  this.] 


War  Treaties  139 

tions,  such  as,  for  example,  to  fight  against 
one's  own  Fatherland  during  the  continuation 
of  the  war,  cannot  be  imposed  upon  the  troops 
capitulating.  Likewise,  also,  obligations  such 
as  are  forbidden  them  by  their  own  civil  or 
military  laws  or  terms  of  service,  cannot  be  im- 
posed. 

5.  Since  capitulations  are  treaties  of  war  they  cannot 

contain,  for  those  contracting  them,  either  rights 
or  duties  which  extend  beyond  the  period  of  the 
war,  nor  can  they  include  dispositions  as  to  mat- 
ters of  constitutional  law  such  as,  for  example,  a 
cession  of  territory. 

6.  A  violation  of  any  of  the  obligations  of  the  treaty 

of  capitulation  justifies  an  opponent  in  imme- 
diately renewing  hostilities  without  further  cere- 
mony. 

The  external  indication  of  a  desire  to  capitulate  is  of  the  white 
the  raising  of  a  white  flag.  There  exists  no  obliga- 
tion to  cease  firing  immediately  on  the  appearance 
of  this  sign  (or  to  cease  hostilities).  The  attain- 
ment of  a  particular  important,  possibly  decisive, 
point,  the  utilization  of  a  favorable  moment,  the 
suspicion  of  an  illicit  purpose  in  raising  the  white 
flag,  the  saving  of  time,  and  the  like,  may  induce  the 
commanding  officer  to  disregard  the  sign  until  these 
reasons  have  disappeared. 

If,  however,  no  such  considerations  exist,  then 
humanity  imposes  an  immediate  cessation  of  hostili- 
ties. 


140       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

o. —  Safe-conducts 

or  safe-con-  The  object  of  these  is  to  secure  persons  or  things 
from  hostile  treatment.  The  usages  of  war  in  this 
matter  furnish  the  following  rules: 

1.  Letters  of  safe-conduct,  for  persons,  can  only  be 

given  to  such  persons  as  are  certain  to  behave 
peaceably  and  not  to  misuse  them  for  hostile 
purposes;  letters  of  safe-conduct  for  things  are 
only  to  be  granted  under  a  guarantee  of  their  not 
being  employed  for  warlike  purposes. 

2.  The  safe-conducts  granted  to  persons  are  personal 

to  them,  i.e.,  they  are  not  available  for  others. 
They  do  not  extend  to  their  companions  unless 
they  are  expressly  mentioned. 
An  exception  is  only  to  be  made  in  the  case  of 
diplomatists  of  neutral  States,  in  whose  case  their 
usual  entourage  is  assumed  to  be  included  even 
though  the  members  are  not  specifically  named. 

3.  The  safe-conduct  is  revocable  at  any  time;  it  can 

even  be  altogether  withdrawn  or  not  recognized 
by  another  superior,  if  the  military  situation  has 
so  altered  that  its  use  is  attended  with  unfavor- 
able consequences  for  the  party  which  has 
granted  it. 

4.  A  safe-conduct  for  things  on  the  other  hand  is  not 

confined  to  the  person  of  the  bearer.  It  is  obvi- 
ous that  if  the  person  of  the  bearer  appears  at 
all  suspicious,  the  safe-conduct  can  be  with- 
drawn. This  can  also  happen  in  the  case  of  an 
officer  who  does  not  belong  to  the  authority  which 
granted  it.  The  officer  concerned  is  in  this  case 


War  Treaties  141 

fully  responsible  for  his  proceedings,  and  should 
report  accordingly. 

D. —  Treaties  of  Armistice 

By  armistice  is  understood  a  temporary  cessation  of  Ar 
of  hostilities  by  agreement.  It  rests  upon  the  volun- 
tary agreement  of  both  parties.  The  object  is  either 
the  satisfaction  of  a  temporary  need  such  as  carrying 
away  the  dead,  collecting  the  wounded,  and  the  like, 
or  the  preparation  of  a  surrender  or  of  negotiations 
for  peace. 

A  general  armistice  must  accordingly  be  distin- 
guished from  a  local  or  particular  one.  The  gen- 
eral armistice  extends  to  the  whole  seat  of  war,  to 
the  whole  army,  and  to  allies;  it  is  therefore  a 
formal  cessation  of  the  war.  A  particular  armistice 
on  the  contrary  relates  only  to  a  part  of  the  seat  of 
war,  to  a  single  part  of  the  opposing  army.  Thus 
the  armistice  of  Poischwitz  in  the  autumn  of  1813 
was  a  general  armistice;  that  of  January  28th,  1871, 
between  Germany  and  France,  was  a  particular  or 
local  one,  since  the  South-Eastern  part  of  the  theater 
of  war  was  not  involved. 

The  right  to  conclude  an  armistice,  whether  gen- 
eral or  particular,  belongs  only  to  a  person  in  high 
command,  i.e.,  the  Commander-in-Chief.  Time  to 
go  and  obtain  the  consent  of  the  ruling  powers  may 
be  wanting.  However,  if  the  object  of  the  armistice 


142       The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

is  to  begin  negotiations  for  peace,  it  is  obvious  that 
this  can  only  be  determined  by  the  highest  authori- 
ties of  the  State. 

If  an  agreement  is  concluded,  then  both  sides  must 
observe  its  provisions  strictly  in  the  letter  and  the 
spirit.  A  breach  of  the  obligations  entered  into  on 
the  one  side  can  only  lead  to  the  immediate  renewal 
of  hostilities  on  the  other  side.2  A  notification  is  in 
this  case  only  necessary  if  the  circumstances  admit 
of  the  consequent  loss  of  time.  If  the  breach  of 
the  armistice  is  the  fault  of  individuals,  then  the 
party  to  whom  they  belong  is  not  immediately  re- 
sponsible and  cannot  be  regarded  as  having  broken 
faith.  If,  therefore,  the  behavior  of  these  individ- 
uals is  not  favored  or  approved  by  their  superiors, 
there  is  no  ground  for  a  resumption  of  hostilities. 
But  the  guilty  persons  ought,  in  such  case,  to  be  pun- 
ished by  the  party  concerned. 

Even  though  the  other  party  does  not  approve  the 
behavior  of  the  trespassers  but  is  powerless  to  pre- 
vent such  trespasses,  then  the  opponent  is  justified 

2  Thus,  in  August,  1813,  the  numerous  trespasses  across  the 
frontier  on  the  part  of  French  detachments  and  patrols  led 
to  the  entry  of  the  Silesian  army  into  the  neutral  territory 
and  therewith  to  a  premature  commencement  of  hostilities. 
Later  inquiries  show  that  these  trespasses  were  committed 
without  the  orders  of  a  superior  and  that,  therefore,  the  French 
staff  cannot  be  reproached  with  a  breach  of  the  compact;  but 
the  behavior  of  Blucher  was  justified  in  the  circumstances  and 
in  any  case  was  based  upon  good  faith. 


War  Treaties  143 

in  regarding  the  armistice  as  at  an  end.  In  order 
to  prevent  unintentional  violation  both  parties  should 
notify  the  armistice  as  quickly  as  possible  to  all,  or 
at  any  rate  to  the  divisions  concerned.  Delay  in  the 
announcement  of  the  armistice  through  negligence 
or  bad  faith  lies,  of  course,  at  the  door  of  him  whose 
duty  it  was  to  announce  it.  A  violation  due  to  the 
bad  faith  of  an  individual  is  to  be  sternly  punished. 

No  one  can  be  compelled  to  give  credit  to  a  com- 
munication from  the  enemy  to  the  effect  that  an 
armistice  has  been  concluded;  the  teaching  of  mili- 
tary history  is  full  of  warnings  against  lightly 
crediting  such  communications.3 

A  fixed  form  for  the  conclusion  of  an  armistice  is 

s  We  have  here  in  mind  not  exclusively  intentionally  untrue 
communications,  although  these  also,  especially  in  the  Napo- 
leonic war,  very  frequently  occur;  very  often  the  untrue  com- 
munication is  made  in  good  faith. 

During  the  fight  which  took  place  at  Chaffois  on  January 
29th,  1871,  when  the  village  was  stormed,  the  cry  of  Armistice 
was  raised  on  the  French  side.  A  French  officer  of  the  General 
Staff  communicated  to  the  Commander  of  the  14th  Division 
by  the  presentation  of  a  written  declaration  the  news  of  an 
armistice  concluded  at  Versailles  for  the  whole  of  France. 
The  document  presented,  which  was  directed  by  the  Commander  - 
in-Chief  of  the  French  Army  in  the  East,  General  Clinchant, 
to  the  Commander  of  the  French  Division  engaged  at  Chaffois, 
ran  as  follows: 

"  An  armistice  of  twenty-one  days  has  been  signed  on  the 
27th.  I  have  this  evening  received  the  official  news.  Cease 
fire  in  consequence  and  inform  the  enemy,  according  to  the 
forms  followed  in  war,  that  the  armistice  exists  and  that  you 
are  charged  to  bring  it  to  his  knowledge. 

(Signed)  CLINCHANT." 


144       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

not  prescribed.  A  definite  and  clear  declaration  is 
sufficient.  It  is  usual  and  is  advisable  to  have 
treaties  of  this  kind  in  writing  in  order  to  exclude 
all  complication,  and,  in  the  case  of  differences  of 
opinion  later  on,  to  have  a  firm  foundation  to  go 
upon. 

During  the  armistice  nothing  must  occur  which 
could  be  construed  as  a  continuation  of  hostilities, 
the  status  quo  must  rather  be  observed  as  far  as 
possible,  provided  that  the  wording  of  the  treaty  does 
not  particularize  anything  to  the  contrary.  On  the 
other  hand  the  belligerents  are  permitted  to  do  every- 
thing which  betters  or  strengthens  their  position  after 

Pontarlier,  January,  29th,  1871. 

Of  the  conclusion  of  this  armistice  no  one  on  the  German 
side  had  any  knowledge.  None  the  less  hostilities  ceased  for 
the  time  being,  pending  the  decision  of  the  higher  authorities. 
Since  on  the  enemy's  side  it  was  asserted  that  a  portion  of 
the  French  troops  in  Chaffois  had  been  made  prisoners  after 
the  news  of  the  existence  of  the  armistice  was  communicated, 
and  the  order  to  cease  fire  had  been  given,  some  thousand 
French  prisoners  were  set  free  again  in  recognition  of  this 
possibility,  and  the  arms  which  had  been  originally  kept  back 
from  them  were  later  restored  to  them  again.  When  the  pro- 
ceedings at  Chaffois  were  reported,  General  von  Manteuffel  de- 
cided on  the  30th  January  as  follows: 

"The  news  of  an  armistice  for  the  Army  of  the  South  is 
false;  the  operations  are  to  be  continued,  and  the  gentlemen 
in  command  are  on  no  other  condition  to  negotiate  with  the 
enemy  than  that  of  laying  down  their  arms.  All  other  nego- 
tiations are,  without  any  cessation  of  hostilities,  to  be  re- 
ferred to  the  Commander-in-Chief." 


War  Treaties  145 

the  expiry  of  the  armistice  and  the  continuation  of 
hofftjlities.  Thus,  for  example,  troops  may  unhesi- 
tatingly be  exercised,  fresh  ones  recruited,  arms  and 
munitions  manufactured,  and  food  supplies  brought 
up,  troops  shifted  and  reenforcements  brought  on  the 
scene.  Whether  destroyed  or  damaged  fortifications 
may  also  be  restored  is  a  question  to  which  different 
answers  are  given  by  influential  teachers  of  the  law 
of  nations.  It  is  best  settled  by  express  agreement  in 
concrete  cases,  and  so  with  the  revictualing  of  a  be- 
sieged fortress. 

As  regards  its  duration,  an  armistice  can  be  con- 
cluded either  for  a  determined  or  an  undetermined 
period,  and  with  or  without  a  time  for  giving  notice. 
If  no  fixed  period  is  agreed  upon,  then  hostilities  can 
be  recommenced  at  any  time.  This,  however,  is  to 
be  made  known  to  the  enemy  punctually,  so  that  the 
resumption  does  not  represent  a  surprise.  If  a  fixed 
time  is  agreed  on,  then  hostilities-  can  be  recom- 
menced the  very  moment  it  expires,  and  without  any 
previous  notification.  The  commencement  of  an 
armistice  is,  in  the  absence  of  an  express  agreement 
fixing  another  time,  to  date  from  the  moment  of  its 
conclusion ;  the  armistice  expires  at  dawn  of  the  day 
to  which  it  extends.  Thus  an  armistice  made  to 
last  until  January  1st  comes  to  an  end  on  the  last 
hour  of  December  31st,  and  a  shorter  armistice  with 

A  —  ~* 

CtfVxvVC  i/**v,  <^W  £\/f  (,4v  ^«*  A/*^f^v**e<+  t"»<J-*»  4wJ 

*"~\t  kid 


Vl 


146       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

the  conclusion  of  the  number  of  hours  agreed  upon ; 
thus,  for  example,  an  armistice  concluded  on  May 
1st  at  6  p.  M.  for  48  hours  last  until  May  3rd  at 
6  p.  M. 


PART  II 


CHAPTER  I 

EIGHTS    AND    DUTIES    OF    THE    INHABITANTS 

IT  has  already  been  shown  in  the  introduction  that 
war  concerns  not  merely  the  active  elements,  but  that  is  notato°be 
also  the  passive  elements  are  involved  in  the  com-  an  enemy. 
mon  suffering,  i.e.,  the  inhabitants  of  the  occupied 
territory  who  do  not  belong  to  the  army.  Opinions  as 
to  the  relations  between  these  peaceable  inhabitants 
of  the  occupied  territory  and  the  army  in  hostile 
possession  have  fundamentally  altered  in  the  course 
of  the  last  century.  Whereas  in  earlier  times  the 
devastation  of  the  enemy's  territory,  the  destruction 
of  property,  and,  in  some  cases  indeed,  the  carrying 
away  of  the  inhabitants  into  bondage  or  captivity, 
were  regarded  as  a  quite  natural  consequence  of  the 
state  of  war,  and  whereas  in  later  times  milder  treat- 
ment of  the  inhabitants  took  place  although  destruc- 
tion and  annihilation  as  a  military  resource  still  con- 
tinued to  be  entertained,  and  the  right  of  plundering 

the  private  property  of  the  inhabitants  remained 

147 


148      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

completely  unlimited  —  today,  the  universally  prev- 
alent idea  is  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  enemy's 
territory  axe  no  longer  to  be  regarded,  generally 
speaking,  as  enemies.  It  will  be  admitted,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  law,  that  the  population  is,  in  the  exceptional 
circumstances  of  war,  subjected  to  the  limitations, 
burdens,  and  measures  of  compulsion  conditioned  by 
it,  and  owes  obedience  for  the  time  being  to  the 
power  de  facto,  but  may  continue  to  exist  otherwise 
undisturbed  and  protected  as  in  time  of  peace  by  the 
course  of  law. 

It  follows  from  all  this,  as  a  matter  of  right,  that, 
as  regards  the  personal  position  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  occupied  territory,  neither  in  life  or  in  limb,  in 
honor  or  in  freedom,  are  they  to  be  injured,  and  that 
every  unlawful  killing;  every  bodily  injury,  due  to 
fraud  or  negligence;  every  insult;  every  disturbance 
of  domestic  peace;  every  attack  on  family,  honor, 
and  morality  and,  generally,  every  unlawful  and  out- 
rageous attack  or  act  of  violence,  are  just  as  strictly 
punishable  as  though  they  had  been  committed 
against  the  inhabitants  of  one's  own  land.  There 
follows,  also,  as  a  right  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
enemy  territory,  that  the  invading  army  can  only 
limit  their  personal  independence  in  so  far  as  the 
necessity  of  war  unconditionally  demands  it,  and  that 
any  infliction  that  needlessly  goes  beyond  this  is  to 
be  avoided. 


Rights  of  Inhabitants  of  Enemy  Territory     149 

As  against  this  right,  there  is  naturally  a  corre-  Their  duty, 
spending  duty  on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants  to  con- 
duct themselves  in  a  really  peaceable  manner,  in  no 
wise  to  participate  in  the  conflict,  to  abstain  from 
every  injury  to  the  troops  of  the  power  in  occupa- 
tion, and  not  to  refuse  obedience  to  the  enemy's  gov- 
ernment. If  this  presumption  is  not  fulfilled,  then 
there  can  no  longer  be  any  talk  of  violations  of 
the  immunities  of  the  inhabitants,  rather  they  are 
treated  and  punished  strictly  according  to  martial 
law. 

The  conception  here  put  forward  as  to  the  relation  or  the  hn- 

i  i  •    -i     i  '  f  •>       nianlty  of 

between  the  army  and  the  inhabitants  of  an  enemv  s  the  Germans 

and  the  bar- 

territory,  corresponds  to  that  of  the  German  Staff 
in  the  years  1870-71.  It  was  given  expression  in 
numerous  proclamations,  and  in  still  more  numerous 
orders  of  the  day,  of  the  German  Generals.  In  con- 
trast to  this  the  behavior  of  the  French  authorities 
more  than  once  betrays  a  complete  ignorance  of  the 
elementary  rules  of  the  law  of  nations,  alike  in  their 
diplomatic  accusations  against  the  Germans  and  in 
the  words  used  towards  their  own  subjects.  Thus, 
on  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  a  threat  was  addressed 
to  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Baden,  not  only  by  the 
French  Press  but  also  officially  (von  amtlicher 
Stelle),1  "that  even  its  women  would  not  be  pro- 

fi  It  will  be  observed  that  no  authority  is  given  for  this 
statement. —  J.  H.  M.] 


150       The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

tected."  So  also  horses  of  Prussian  officers,  who 
had  been  shot  by  the  peasants,  were  publicly  put  up 
to  auction  by  the  murderers.  So  also  the  Francti- 
reurs  threatened  the  inhabitants  of  villages  occupied 
by  the  Germans  that  they  would  be  shot  and  their 
houses  burnt  down  if  they  received  the  enemy  in  their 
houses  or  "  were  to  enter  into  intercourse  with  them." 
So  also  the  prefect  of  the  Cote  d'Or,  in  an  official  cir- 
cular of  November  21st,  urges  the  sub-prefects  and 
mayors  of  his  Department  to  a  systematic  pursuit  of 
assassination,  when  he  says :  "  The  Fatherland 
does  not  demand  of  you  that  you  should  assemble 
en  masse  and  openly  oppose  the  enemy,  it  only  ex- 
pects that  three  or  four  determined  men  should  leave 
the  village  every  morning  and  conceal  themselves  in 
a  place  indicated  by  nature,  from  which,  without 
danger,  they  can  shoot  the  Prussians ;  above  all,  they 
are  to  shoot  at  the  enemy's  mounted  men  whose 
horses  they  are  to  deliver  up  at  the  principal  place 
of  the  Arrondissement.  I  will  award  a  bonus  to 
them  (for  the  delivery  of  such  horses),  and  will  pub- 
lish their  heroic  deed  in  all  the  newspapers  of  the 
Department,  as  well  as  in  the  Moniteur."  But  this 
conception  of  the  relation  between  the  inhabitants 
and  the  hostile  army  not  only  possessed  the  minds  of 
the  provincial  authorities  but  also  the  central  gov- 
ernment at  Tours  itself,  as  is  clear  from  the  fact  that 
it  held  it  necessary  to  stigmatize  publicly  the  mem- 


Rights  of  Inhabitants  of  Enemy  Territory     151 

bers  of  the  municipal  commission  at  Soissons  who, 
after  an  attempt  on  the  life  of  a  Prussian  sentry  by 
an  unknown,  hand,  prudently  warned  their  members 
against  a  repetition  of  such  outrages,  when  it  [the 
central  government]  ordered  "  that  the  names  of  the 
men  who  had  lent  themselves  to  the  assistance  and 
interpretation  of  the  enemy's  police  be  immediately 
forthcoming."  2  And  if,  on  the  French  side,  the 
proclamation  of  General  von  Falckenstein  is  cited 
as  a  proof  of  similar  views  on  the  German  side  — 
the  proclamation  wherein  the  dwellers  on  the  coast 
of  the  North  Sea  and  the  Baltic  are  urged  to  partici- 
pate in  the  defense  of  the  coast,  and  are  told  :  "  Let 
every  Frenchman  who  sets  foot  on  your  coast  be 
forfeit  "  —  as  against  this  all  that  need  be  said  is  that 
this  incitement,  as  is  well  known,  had  no  effect  in 
Germany  and  excited  the  greatest  surprise  and  was 
properly  condemned.  * 


. 

M  1 
Having  thus  developed  the  principles  governing  what  the 

.  \        .  i       ,         .          Invader  mar 

the  relation  between  the  hostile  army  and  the  in-  do. 
habitants,  we  will  now  consider  somewhat  more 
closely  the  duties  of  the  latter  and  the  burdens  which, 
in  a  given  case,  it  is  allowable  to  impose  upon  it. 
Obviously  a  precise  enumeration  of  every  kind  of 
service  which  may  be  demanded  from  them  is  im- 

2  See  as  to  this  :     Rolin-Jacquemyns,  II,  34  ;  and  Dahn,  Der 
Deutsch-Franzosische  Krieg  und  das  Volkerrecht. 


152       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

possible,  but  the  following  of  the  most  frequent  oc- 
currence are: 

1.  Restriction  of  post,  railway  and  letter  communica- 

tion, supervision,  or,  indeed,  total  prohibition  of 
the  same. 

2.  Limitation  of  freedom  of  movement  within  the 

country,  prohibition  to  frequent  certain  parts  of 
the  seat  of  war,  or  specified  places. 

3.  Surrender  of  arms. 

4.  Obligation  to  billet  the  enemy's  soldiers;  prohibi- 

tlon  ofillumination  of  windows  at  night  and  the 
like. 

5.  Production  of  conveyances. 

(6.  Performance  of  work  on  streets,  bridges,  trenches 
(Graben),  railways,  buildings,  etc. 
7.  Production  of  hostages. 

As  to  1,  the  necessity  of  interrupting,  in  many 
cases,  railway,  postal,  and  telegraph  communication, 
of  stopping  them  or,  at  the  least,  stringently  super- 
vising them,  hardly  calls  for  further  proof.  Human 
feeling  on  the  part  of  the  commanding  officer  will 
know  what  limits  to  fix,  where  the  needs  of  the  war 
and  the  necessities  of  the  population  permit  of  mu- 
tual accommodation. 

As  to  2,  if  according  to  modern  views  no  in- 
habitant of  occupied  territory  can  be  compelled  to 
participate  directly  in  the  fight  against  his  own 
Fatherland,  so,  conversely,  he  can  be  prevented  from 
reenforcing  his  own  army.  Thus  the  German  staff 


Rights  of  Inhabitants  of  Enemy  Territory      153 

in  1870,  where  it  had  acquired  authority,  in  par- 
ticular in  Alsace-Lorraine,  sought  to  prevent  the  en- 
trance of  the  inhabitants  into  the  French  army,  even 
as  in  the  Napoleonic  wars  the  French  authorities 
sought  to  prevent  the  adherence  of  the  States  of  the 
Ehine  Confederation  to  the  army  of  the  Allies. 

The  view  that  no  inhabitant  of  occupied  territory  I  A  man  may 

i  n     i  •    •  T  '  be  compelled 

can  be  compelled  to  participate  directly  in  the  strug- '  to  betray  his 
gle  against  his  own  country  is  subject  to  an  excep-  i 
tion  by  the  general  usages  of  war  which  must  be  re-  H" 
corded  here:  the  calling  up  and  employment  of  the  i 
inhabitants  as  guides  on  unfamiliar  ground.     How- 
ever much  it  may  ruffle  human  feeling,  to  compel 
a  man  to  do  harm  to  his  own  Fatherland,  and  in- 
directly to  fight  his  own  troops,  none  the  less~no 
army  operating  in  an  enemy's  country  will  altogether 
renounce  this  expedient.3 

But  a  still  more  severe  measure  is  the  compulsion  Ana  worse, 
of  the  inhabitants  to  furnish  information  about  their 
own  army,  its  strategy,  its  resources,  and  its  military 
secrets.     The  majority  of  writers  of  all  nations  are  \ 
unanimous  in  their  condemnation  of  this  measure.  \ 
Nevertheless  it  cannot  be  entirely  dispensed  with;! 
doubtless  it  will  be  applied  with  regret,  but  the  ar-j 
gument  of  war  will  frequently  make  it  necessary.4! 

a  [See  Editor's  Introduction  for  criticism  of  this  brutality. — 
J.  H.  M.] 
*  [Ibid.] 


154       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 


As  to  5  and  6,  the  summoning  of  the  inhabitants 
to  supply  vehicles  and  perform  works  has  also  been 
stigmatized  as  an  unjustifiable  compulsion  upon  the 
inhabitants  to  participate  in  "  Military  operations." 
But  it  is  clear  that  an  officer  can  never  allow  such  a 
far-reaching  extension  of  this  conception,  since  other- 
wise every  possibility  of  compelling  work  would  dis- 
appear, while  every  kind  of  work  to  be  performed  in 
war,  every  vehicle  to  be  furnished  in  any  connec- 
tion with  the  conduct  of  war,  is  or  may  be  bound  up 
with  it.  Thus  the  argument  of  war  must  decide. 
The  German  Staff,  in  the  War  of  1870>  moreover, 
rarely  made  use  of  compulsion  in  order  to  obtain 
civilian  workers  for  the  performance  of  necessary 
works.  It  paid  high  wages  and,  therefore,  almost  al- 
ways had  at  its  disposal  sufficient  offers.  This  pro- 
cedure should,  therefore,  be  maintained  in  future 
The  provision  of  a  supply  of  labor  is  best 


cases. 


arranged  through  the  medium  of  the  local  authorities. 
In  case  of  refusal  of  workers  punishment  can,  of 
course,  be  inflicted.  Therefore  the  conduct  of  the 
German  civil  commissioner,  Count  Renard  —  so 
strongly  condemned  by  French  jurists  and  jurists 
with  French  sympathies  —  who,  in  order  to  compel 
labor  for  the  necessary  repair  of  a  bridge,  threatened, 
in  case  of  further  refusal,  after  stringent  threats  of 
punishment  had  not  succeeded  in  getting  the  work 
done,  to  punish  the  workers  by  shooting  some  of  them, 


£| 

J^t**»  V«er-V  &*tp~ 


Eights  of  Inhabitants  of  Enemy  Territory      155 

was  in  accordance  with  the  actual  laws  of  war;  the 
main  thing  was  that  it  attained  its  object,  without 
its  being  necessary  to  practise  it.  The  accusation 
made  by  the  French  that,  on  the  German  side, 
Frenchmen  were  compelled  to  labor  at  the  siege 
works  before  Strassburg,  has  been  proved  to  be  in- 
correct. 

7.  By  hostages  are  understood  those  persons  who,  Hostages, 
as  security  or  bail  for  the  fulfilment  of  treaties,  prom- 
ises or  other  claims,  are  taken  or  detained  by  the 
opposing  State  or  its  army.     Their  provision  has 
been  less  usual  in  recent  wars,  as  a  result  of  which 
some  Professors  of  the  law  of  nations  have  wrongly 
decided  that  the  taking  of  hostages  has  disappeared 
from  the  practise  of  civilized  nations.     As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  was  frequently  practised  in  the  Napoleonic 
wars;  also  in  the  wars  of  1848,  1849,  and  1859  by 
the  Austrians  in  Italy;  in  1864  and  1866  by  Prussia; 
in  the  campaigns  of  the  French  in  Algiers;  of  the 
Russians  in  the  Caucasus;  of  the  English  in  their 
Colonial  wars,  as  being  the  usual  thing.     The  un-  I 
favorable  criticisms  of  it  by  the  German  Staff  in  \ 
isolated  cases  is  therefore  to  be  referred  to  differ-   i 
ent  grounds  of  applied  expedients.5 

o  For  example,  the  carrying  off  of  forty  leading  citizens  from 
Dijon  and  neighboring  towns  as  reprisals  against  the  making 
prisoners  of  the  crew  of  German  merchantmen  by  the  French 
(undoubtedly  contrary  to  the  law  of  nations ^7  the  pretense 
being  that  the  crews  could  serve  to  reenforce  the  German  navy 

X 


156       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

A  new  application  of  "  hostage-right  "  was  prac- 
tised by  the  German  Staff  in  the  war  of  1870,  when 
it  compelled  leading  citizens  from  French  towns  and 
villages  to  accompany  trains  and  locomotives  in  or- 
der to  protect  the  railways  communications  which 
were  threatened  by  the  people.  Since  the  lives  of 
peaceable  inhabitants  were  without  any  fault  on  their 
part  thereby  exposed  to  grave  danger,  every  writer 
outside  Germany  has  stigmatized  this  measure  as 
contrary  to  the  law  of  nations  and  as  unjustified  to- 
wards the  inhabitants  of  the  country.  As  against 
this  unfavorable  criticism  it  must  be  pointed  out  that 
this  measure,  which  was  also  recognized  on  the  Ger- 
man side  as  harsh  and  cruel,  was  only  resorted  to 
after  declarations  and  instructions  of  the  occupy- 
ing 6  authorities  had  proved  ineffective,  and  that  in 
the  particular  circumstance  it  was  the  only  method 
which  promised  to  be  effective  against  the  doubtless 
unauthorized,  indeed  the  criminal,  behavior  of  a 
fanatical  population.* 

Herein  lies  its  justification  under  the  laws  of  war, 
I  fcut  still  more  in  the  fact  that  it  proved  completely 
1  ^successful,  and  that  wherever  citizens'  were  thus  car- 

fa  pretense  strikingly  repudiated  by  Bismarck's  Notes  of 
October  4th  and  November  16th,  1870).  Liider,  Das  Land- 
kriegsrecht,  p.  111. 

8  Proclamation  of  the  Governor-General  of  Alsace,  and  to 
the  same  effect  the  Governor-General  of  Lorraine  of  October 
18th,  1870. 


Rights  of  Inhabitants  of  Enemy  Territory      157 

ried  on  the  trains  (whether  result  was  due  to  the  in- 
creased watchfulness  of  the  communes  or  to  the  im- 
mediate influence  on  the  population),  the  security  of 
traffic  was  restored.7 

To  protect  oneself  against  attack  and  injuries 
from  the  inhabitants  and  to  employ  ruthlessly  the 
necessary  means  of  defense  and  intimidation  is  ob- 
viously not  only  a  right  but  indeed  a  duty  of  the 
staff  of  the  army.  The  ordinary  law  will  in  this  mat- 
ter generally  not  suffice,  it  must  be  supplemented 
by  the  law  of  the  enemy's  might.  Martial  law  and 
courts-martial  must  take  the  place  of  the  ordinary 
jurisdiction.8 

To  Martial  law  are  subject  in  particular: 

1.  All  attacks,  violations,  homicides,  and  robberies,  by 

soldiers  belonging  to  the  army  of  occupation. 

2.  All  attacks  on  the  equipment  of  this  army,  its  sup- 

plies, ammunition,  and  the  like. 

3.  Every    destruction    of    communication,    such    as 

bridges,  canals,  roads,  railways  and  telegraphs. 

4.  War  rebellion  and  war  treason. 

Only  the  fourth  point  requires  explanation. 

By  war  rebellion  is  to  be  understood  the  taking  war  R«- 

bellion. 

7  See  Loning,  Die  Vencaltung  des  General-gouvemcments  en 
Elsass,  p.  107. 

s  For  a  state  of  war  the  provisions  of  the  Prussian  Law  of 
June  4th,  1861,  still  hold  good  to-day.  According  to  this  law 
all  the  inhabitants  of  the  territory  in  a  state  of  siege  are 
subject  to  military  courts  in  regard  to  certain  punishable  pro- 
ceedings. 


158 


of  arms  by  the  inhabitants  against  the  occupation ; 
by  war  treason  on  the  other  hand  the  injury  or  im- 
periling of  the  enemy's  authority  through  deceit  or 
through  communication  of  news  to  one's  own  army 
as  to  the  disposition,  movement,  and  intention,  etc., 
of  the  army  in  occupation,  whether  the  person  con- 
'  cerned  has  come  into  possession  of  his  information 
by  lawful  or  unlawful  means  (i.e.,  by  espionage). 
0  k      Against  both  of  these  only  the  most  ruthless  meas- 
•  ures  are  effective.     Napoleon  wrote  to  his  brother 


Joseph,  when,  after  the  latter  ascended  the  throne  of 
•****  (V?t  Naples,  the  inhabitants  of  lower  Italy  made  various 
" '  attempts  at  revolt :  "  The  security  of  your  dominion 
depends  on  how  you  behave  in  the  conquered 
province.  Burn  down  a  dozen  places  which  are  not 
willing  to  submit  themselves.  Of  course,  not  until 
you  have  first  looted  them;  my  soldiers  must  not  be 
allowed  to  go  away  with  their  hands  empty.  Have 
three  to  six  persons  hanged  in  every  village  which 
has  joined  the  revolt ;  pay  no  respect  to  the  cassock. 
Simply  bear  in  mind  how  I  dealt  with  them  in 
Piacenza  and  Corsica."  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  in 

1814,  threatened  the  South  of  France;  "he  will,  if 
leaders  of  factions  are  supported,  burn  the  villages 
and  have  their  inhabitants  hanged."     In  the  year 

1815,  he  issued  the  following  proclamation:     "All 
those  who  after  the  entry  of  the  (English)  army  into 
France  leave  their  dwellings  and  all  those  who  are 


Rights  of  Inhabitants  of  Enemy  Territory      159 

found  in  the  service  of  the  usurper  will  be  regarded 
as  adherents  of  his  and  as  enemies;  their  property 
will  be  used  for  the  maintenance  of  the  army." 
"  These  are  the  expressions  in  the  one  case  of  one  of 
the  great  masters  of  war  and  of  the  dominion  founded 
upon  war  power,  and  in  the  other,  of  a  commander- 
in-chief  who  elsewhere  had  carried  the  protection  of 
private  property  in  hostile  lands  to  the  extremest 
possible  limit.  Both  men  as  soon  as  a  popular  rising 
takes  place  resort  to  terrorism."  9 

A  particular  kind  of  war  treason,  which  must  be  " 

•    n  •  •  i  -i  •  <•     i          s 

briefly  gone  into  here,  inasmuch  as  the  views  of  the  u 

Guides. 

jurists  about  it  differ  very  strongly  from  the  usages 
of  war,  is  the  case  of  deception  in  leading  the  way, 
perpetrated  in  the  form  of  deliberate  guiding  of  the 
enemy's  troops  by  an  inhabitant  on  a  false  or  dis- 
advantageous road.  If  he  has  offered  his  services, 
then  the  fact  of  his  treason  is  quite  clear,  but,  also  in 
case  he  was  forced  to  act  as  guide  his  offense  cannot 
be  judged  differently,  for  he  owed  obedience  to  the 
power  in  occupation,  he  durst  in  no  case  perpetrate 
an  act  of  open  resistance  and  positive  harm  but 
should  have,  if  the  worst  came  to  the  worst,  limited 
himself  to  passive  disobedience^*  and  he  must  there- 
fore bear  the  consequence.10 

However  intelligible  the  inclination  to  treat  and  Another 

deplorable 

»  J.  von  Hartmann,  Kritische  Versuche,  II,  p.  73. 
10  Ltider,  Das  Landkriegsrecht,  p.  103. 


160       Tli&  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

to  judge  an  offense  of  this  kind  from  a  milder  stand- 
point may  appear,  none  the  less  the  leader  of  the 
troops  thus  harmed  cannot  do  otherwise  than  punish 
the  offender  with  death,  since  only  by  harsh  measures 
of  defense  and  intimidation  can  the  repetition  of 
^uch  .offenses  bo  prevented.  In  this  ease  a  court- 
martial  must  precede  the  infliction  of  the  penalty. 
The  court-martial  must  however  be  on  its  guard 
against  imputing  hastily  a  treasonable  intent  to  the 
guide.  The  punishment  of  misdirection  requires  in 
every  case  proof  of  evil  intention. 

Also  it  is  not  allowable  to  diplomatic  agents  to 
make  communications  from  the  country  which  they 
inhabit  during  the  war  to  any  side  as  to  the  military 
situation  or  proceedings.  Persons  contravening  this 
universally  recognized  usage  of  war  may  be  immedi- 
ately expelled  or  in  the  case  of  great  danger  arrested. 


Of  Private 
Property  and 
•  Its  immuni- 
ties. 


CHAPTER  II 

PBIVATE    PROPERTY    IN"    WAE 

SINCE,  according  to  the  law  of  nations  and  the  law 
of  war  to-day,  war_m.akes,enerQies  of  States  andjiot 
of  private^  persons,  it  follows  that  every  arbitrary 
devastation  of  the  country  and  every  destruction  of 
private  property,  generally  speaking  every  unneces- 
sary (i.e.,  not  required  by  the  necessity  of  war)  in- 
jury to  alien  property  is  contrary  to  the  law  of  na- 
tions. Every  inhabitant  of  the  territory  occupied  is 
therefore  to  be  protected  alike  in  his  person  and  in 
his  property. 

In  this  sense  spoke  King  William  to  the  French  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Campaign  of  1870  :  "I  wage 
war  with  the  French  soldiers  and  not  with  the 
French  citizens.  The  latter  will  therefore  continue 
to  enjoy  security  for  their  person  and  their  goods, 
so  long  as  they  do  not  by  hostile  undertakings  against 
German  troops  deprive  me  of  the  right  to  afford  them 
my  protection." 

The  question  stands  in  quite  another  position  if 
the  necessity  of  war  demands  the  requisition  of  the   ' 
stranger's  property,  whether  public  or  private.     In  * 

161 


162       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

jthis_case  of  course  every  sequestration,  every  tempo- 
rary or  permanent  deprivation,  every  use,  every  in- 
jury and  all  destruction  are  permitted. 

following  principles  therefore  result : 


1.  Prohibited  unconditionally  are  all  aimless  destruc- 
tions, devastations,  burnings,  and  ravages  of  the 
enemy's  country.  The  soldier  who  practises  such 
things  is  punished  as  an  offender  according  to 
the  appropriate  laws.1 

'    2.  Permissible  on  the  other  hand  are  all  destructions 
and  injuries  dictated  by  military  considerations ; 
\  and,  indeed, 

f  ^   (••**-***  •  (a)  All  demolitions  of  houses  and  other  build- 

ings,   bridges,    railways,    and   telegraphic 

*•**'  establishments,  due  to  the  necessity  of  mili- 

tary operations. 

(6)  All  injuries  which  are  required  through 
military  movements  in  the  country  or  for 
earthworks  for  attack  or  defense. 

Hence  the  double  rule:  ~No  harm  must  be  done, 
not  even  the  very  slightest,  which  is  not  dictated  by 
military  consideration;  every  kind  of  harm  may  be 
done,  even  the  very  utmost,  which  the  conduct  of  war 
requires  or  which  comes  in  the  natural  course  of  it. 

Whether  the  natural  justification  exists  or  not  ia 

i  Obviously  we  are  only  speaking  of  a  war  between  civilized 
people  since,  in  the  case  of  savages  and  barbarians,  humanity 
is  not  advanced  very  far,  and  one  cannot  act  otherwise  toward 
them  than  by  devastation  of  their  grain  fields,  driving  away 
their  herds,  taking  of  hostages,  and  the  like. 


Private  Property  in  War  163 

a  subject  for  decision  in  each  individual  case.  The 
answer  to  this  question  lies  entirely  in  the  power  of 
the  Commanding  Officer,  from  whose  conscience  our 
times  can  expect  and  demand  as  far-reaching  hu- 
manity as  the  object  of  war  permits. 

On  similar  principles  must  be  answered  the  ques- 
tion as  to  the  temporary  use  of  property,  dispositions 
as  to  houses  and  the  like:  no  inhabitant  of  the  oc- 
cupied territory  is  to  be  disturbed  in  the  use  and 
free  disposition  of  his  property,  on  the  other  hand 
the  necessity  of  war  justifies  the  most  far-reaching 
disturbance,  restriction,  and  even  imperiling  of  his 
property.  In  consequence  there  are  permitted: 

1.  Requisitions  of  houses  and  their  furniture  for  the 

purpose  of  billeting  troops. 

2.  Use  of  houses  and  their  furniture  for  the  care  of 

the  sick  and  wounded. 

3.  Use  of  buildings  for  observation,  shelter,  defense, 

fortification,  and  the  like. 

Whether  the  property  owners  are  subjects  of  the 
occupied  territory  or  of  a  Foreign  State  is  a  matter 
of  complete  indifference;  also  the  property  of  the 
Sovereign  and  his  family  is  subject  to  no  exception, 
although  to-day  it  is  usually  treated  with  courtesy. 

The  conception  of  the  inviolability  of  private  prop-  or  German 
erty  here  depicted  was  shared  by  the  Germans  in 
1870  and  was  observed.     If  on  the  French  side  state- 
ments to  the  contrary  are  even  to-day  given  expres- 


164      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 

sion,  they  rest  either  on  untruth  or  exaggeration. 
It  certainly  cannot  be  maintained  that  no  illegitimate 
violations  of  private  property  by  individuals  ever 
occurred.  But  that  kind  of  thing  can  never  be  en- 
tirely avoided  even  among  the  most  highly  cultivated 
nations,  and  the  best  disciplined  armies.  In  every 
case  the  strictest  respect  for  private  property  was  en- 
joined 2  upon  the  soldiers  by  the  German  Military 
Authorities  after  crossing  the  frontier,  and  strong 
measures  were  taken  in  order  to  make  this  injunc- 
tion effective;  the  property  of  the  French  was  in- 
deed, as  might  be  shown  in  numerous  cases,  pro- 
tected against  the  population  itself,  and  was  even 
in  several  cases  saved  at  the  risk  of  our  own 
lives.3 

2  Army  Order  of  August  8th,  1870,  on  crossing  the  frontier: 
"  Soldiers  !  the  pursuit  of  the  enemy  who  has  been  thrust 
back  after  bloody  struggles  has  already  led  a  great  part  of  our 
army  across  the  frontier.  Several  corps  will  to-day  and  to- 
morrow set  foot  upon  French  soil.  I  expect  that  the  discipline 
by  which  you  have  hitherto  distinguished  yourselves  will  be 
particularly  observed  on  the  enemy's  territory.  We  wage  no 
war  against  the  peaceable  inhabitants  of  the  country;  it  is 
rather  the  duty  of  every  honor-loving  soldier  to  protect  pri- 
vate property  and  not  to  allow  the  good  name  of  our  army 
to  be  soiled  by  a  single  example  of  bad  discipline.  I  count 
upon  the  good  spirit  which  animates  the  army,  but  at  the  same 
time  also  upon  the  sternness  and  circumspection  of  all  leaders. 
Headquarters,  Homburg,  August  8th,  1870. 

(Signed)   WILHELM." 

s  "  It  is  well  known  that  the  vineyards  in  France  were 
guarded  and  protected  by  the  German  troops,  but  the  same 
thing  happened  in  regard  to  the  art  treasures  of  Versailles, 


VL  j~      f^~*~-  °^^  -  I 


Private  Property  in  War  165 

In  like  manner  arbitrary  destructions  and  ravages  The  gentle 

*  Hun  and  the 

of  buildings  and  the  like  did  not  occur  on  the  (jer- 
man  side  where  they  were  not  called  forth  by  the 
behavior  of  the  inhabitants  themselves.  They 
scarcely  ever  occurred  except  where  the  inhabitants 
had  foolishly  left  their  dwellings  and  the  soldiers 
were  excited  by  closed  doors  and  want  of  food.  "  If 
the  soldier  finds  the  doors  of  his  quarters  shut,  and 
the  food  intentionally  concealed  or  buried,  then  ne- 
cessity impels  him  to  burst  open  the  doors  and  to  track 
the  stores,  and  he  then,  in  righteous  anger,  destroys 
a  mirror,  and  with  the  broken  furniture  heats  the 
stove."  4 

If  minor  injuries  explain  themselves  in  this 
fashion  in  the  eyes  of  every  reasonable  and  thinking 
man,  so  the  result  of  a  fundamental  and  unprejudiced 
examination  has  shown  that  the  destructions  and 
ravages  on  a  greater  scale,  which  were  made  a  re- 
proach against  the  German  Army,  have  in  no  case 
overstepped  the  necessity  prescribed  by  the  military 
situation.  Thus  the  much  talked  of  and,  on  the 
French  side,  enormously  exaggerated,  burning  down 
of  twelve  houses  in  Bazeilles,  together  with  the  shoot- 
ing of  an  inhabitant,  were  completely  justified  and, 
indeed,  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  war;  indeed 

and  the  German  soldiers  protected  French  property  at  the  risk 
of  their  lives  against  the  incendiary  bombs  of  the  Paris  Com- 
mune."—  Liider,  Landkriegsrecht,  p.  118. 
4  Bluntschli,  Volkerrecht,  sec.  652. 


166       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

one  may  maintain  that  the  conduct  of  the  inhabitants 
would  have  called  for  the  complete  destruction  of 
the  village  and  the  condemnation  of  all  the  adult  in- 
habitants bylnartial  Iaw7~ 


<U 

U    &*+ 


CHAPTEK  III 

BOOTY   AOT>   PLUNDERING 

IN  section  1,  the  inhabitant  of  the  enemy's  territory  Booty, 
was  described  as  a  subject  of  legal  rights  and  du- 
ties, who,  so  far  as  the  nature  of  war  allows,  may 
continue  to  live  protected  as  in  time  of  peace  by  the 
course  of  law;  further,  in  section  2,  property, 
whether  it  be  public  or  private,  was  likewise,  so  far 
as  war  allows  it,  declared  to  be  inviolable  —  it  there- 
fore follows  logically  that  there  can  exist  no  right  to 
the  appropriation  of  the  property,  i.e.,  a  right  to 
booty  or  plundering.  Opinions  as  to  this  have,  in 
the  course  of  the  last  century,  undergone  a  complete 
change ;  the  earlier  unlimited  right  of  appropriation 
in  war  is  to-day  recognized  in  regard  to  public  prop- 
erty as  existing  only  in  defined  circumstances. 

In  the  development  of  the  principles  recognized 
to-day  we  have  to  distinguish. 

1.  State  property  and  unquestionably: 
(a)  immovable,1 
(&)  movable.1 

i  [These  terms  are  translated  literally.  They  are  roughly 
equivalent  to  the  English  distinction  between  "  real "  and 
"personal"  property. —  J.  H.  M.] 

167 


168 

2.  Private  property : 
(a)  immovable, 
(&)  movable. 

Immovable  State  property  is  now  no  longer  for- 
feited as  booty ;  it  may,  however,  be  used  if  such  use 
is  in  the  interests  of  military  operation,  and  even 
destroyed,  or  temporarily  administered.  While  in 
the  wars  of  the  First  French  Empire,  Napoleon,  in 
numerous  cases,  even  during  the  war  itself,  disposed 
of  the  public  property  of  the  enemy  (domains,  cas- 
tles, mines,  salt-works)  in  favor  of  his  Marshals  and 
diplomatists,  to-day  an  appropriation  of  this  kind  is 
considered  by  international  opinion  to  be  unjusti- 
fied and,  in  order  to  be  valid,  requires  a  formal  treaty 
between  the  conqueror  and  the  conquered. 

The  Military  Government  by  the  army  of  occupa- 
tion is  only  a  Usufructuary  pro  tempore.  It  must, 
therefore,  avoid  every  purposeless  injury,  it  has  no 
right  to  sell  or  dispose  of  the  property.  According 
to  this  juristic  view  the  military  administration  of 
the  conqueror  disposes  of  the  public  revenue  and 
taxes  which  are  raised  in  the  occupied  territory,  with 
the  understanding,  however,  that  the  regular  and  un- 
avoidable expenses  of  administration  continue  to  be 
defrayed.  The  military  authority  controls  the  rail- 
ways and  telegraphs  of  the  enemy's  State,  but  here 
also  it  possesses  only  the  right  of  use  and  has  to  give 
back  the  material  after  the  end  of  the  war.  In  the 


Booty  and  Plundering  169 

administration  of  the  State  forests,  it  is  not  bound 
to  follow  the  mode  of  administration  of  the  enemy's 
Forest  authorities,  but  it  must  not  damage  the  woods 
by  excessive  cutting,  still  less  may  it  cut  them  down 
altogether. 

Movable  State  property  on  the  other  hand  can,  ac-  state  Per. 
cording  to  modern  views,  be  unconditionally  appro-  theam7rcy  of 

•    j.    j  T_      J.T  the  victor. 

priated  by  the  conqueror. 

This  includes  public  funds,2  arms,  and  munition 
stores,  magazines,  transport,  material  supplies  useful 
for  the  war  and  the  lika  Since  the  possession  of 
things  of  this  kind  is  of  the  highest  importance  for 
the  conduct  of  the  war,  the  conqueror  is  justified  in 
destroying  and  annihilating  them  if  he  is  not  able  to 
keep  them. 

On  the  other  hand  an  exception  is  made  as  to  all 
objects  which  serve  the  purposes  of  religious  worship, 
education,  the  sciences  and  arts,  charities  and  nurs- 
ing. Protection  must  therefore  be  extended  to:  the 
property  of  churches  and  schools,  of  libraries  and 
museums,  of  almshouses  and  hospitals.  The  usual 
practise  of  the  Napoleonic  campaigns  3  so  ruthlessly 
resorted  to  of  carrying  off. art  treasures,  antiquities, 

2  To  be  entirely  distinguished  from  municipal  funds  which 

are  regarded  as  private  property.  » 

3  How    sensitive,    indeed,    how    utterly    sentimental,    public 
opinion  has  become  to-day  in  regard,  io  title  question,  is  shown  * 
by  the  attitude  of  the  French  and  German  Press  in  regard  to 

gome  objects  of  art  carried  away  from  China. 


170      The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 


Private 
realty. 


Private 
personalty. 


and  whole  collections,  in  order  to  incorporate  them 
in  one's  own  art  galleries,  is  no  longer  allowed  by  the 
law  of  nations  to-day.4 

Immovable  private  property  may  well  be  the  ob- 
ject of  military  operations  and  military  policy,  but 
cannot  be  appropriated  as  booty,  nor  expended  for 
fiscal  or  private  purposes  of  acquisition.  This  also 
includes,  of  course,  the  private  property  of  the  ruling 
family,  in  so  far  as  it  really  possesses  this  character 
and  is  not  Crown  Lands,  whose  fruits  are  expended 
as  a  kind  of  Civil  List  or  serve  to  supplement  the 
same. 

Movable  private  property,  finally,  which  in  earlier 
times  was  the  undeniable  booty  of  the  conqueror,  is 
to-day  regarded  as  inviolable.  The  carrying  off  of 
money,  watches,  rings,  trinkets,  or  other  objects  of 
value,  is  therefore  to  be  regarded  as  criminal  robbery 
and  to  be  punished  accordingly. 

The  appropriation  of  private  property  is  regarded 
as  partially  permissible  in  the  case  of  those  objects 
which  the  conquered  combatant  carries  on  his  own 
person.  Still  here  also,  opinions  against  the  practise 
make  it  clear  that  the  taking  away  of  objects  of  value, 
money,  and  such-like  is  not  permissible,  and  only 

*  As  to  booty  in  the  shape  of  horses,  the  Prussian  instruc- 
tions say :  "  Horses  taken  as  booty  belong  to  the  State  and 
are  therefore  to  be  handed  over  to  the  horse  depot.  For  every 
horse  which  is  still  serviceable  he  who  has  captured  it  receives 
a  bonus  of  18  dollars  out  of  the  exchequer,  and  for  every  un- 
serviceable horse  half  this  sum." 


Booty  and  Plundering  171 

those  required  for  the  equipment  of  troops  are  de- 
clared capable  of  appropriation. 

The  recognition   of  the  inviolability  of  private?  4* 
property  does  not  of  course  exclude  the  sequestration 
of  such  objects  as  can,  although  they  are  private! 
property,  at  the  same  time  be  regarded  as  of  use  inj 
war.     This  includes,  for  example,  warehouses  of  sup- 
plies, stores  of  arms  in  factories,  depots  of  convey- 
ances or  other  means  of  traffic,  as  bicycles,  motor 
cars,  and  the  like,  or  other  articles  likely  to  be  of  use 
with  advantage  to  the  army,  as  telescopes,  etc.     In 
order  to  assure  to  the  possessors  compensation  from 
their  government,  equity  enjoins  that  a  receipt  be 
given  for  the  sequestration. 

Logically  related  to  movable  property  are  the  so-  ••  choses  in 
called  "  incorporeal  things."  When  Xapoleon,  for 
example,  appropriated  the  debts  due  to  the  Elector 
of  Hesse  and  thus  compelled  the  Elector's  debtors  to 
pay  their  debts  to  him ;  when  he  furthermore  in  1807 
allowed  the  debts  owed  by  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Duchy  of  Warsaw  to  Prussian  banks  and  other  public 
institutions,  and  indeed  even  to  private  persons  in 
Prussia,  to  be  assigned  by  the  King  of  Prussia,  and 
then  sold  them  to  the  King  of  Saxony  for  200  million 
francs,  this  was,  according  to  the  modern  view,  noth- 
ing better  than  robbery. 

Plundering  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  worst  form  of  piundenn* 

..  __....       ta  wicked. 

appropriation  of  a  stranger  s  property.     By  this  is 


172       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

to  be  understood  the  robbing  of  inhabitants  by  the 
employment  of  terror  and  the  abuse  of  a  military 
superiority.  The  main  point  of  the  offense  thus  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  the  perpetrator,  finding  himself 
in  the  presence  of  the  browbeaten  owner,  who  feels 
defenseless  and  can  offer  no  opposition,  appropriates 
things,  such  as  food  and  clothing,  which  he  does  not 
want  for  his  own  needs.  It  is  not  plundering  but 
downright  burglary  if  a  man  pilfers  things  out  of 
uninhabited  houses  or  at  times  when,  the  owner  is 
absent. 

Plundering  is  by  the  law  of  nations  to-day  to  be  re- 
garded as  invariably  unlawful.  If  it  may  be  difficult 
sometimes  in  the  very  heat  of  the  fight  to  restrain 
excited  troops  from  trespasses,  yet  unlawful  plun- 
dering, extortion,  or  other  violations  of  property, 
must  be  most  sternly  punished,  it  matters  not  whether 
it  be  done  by  members  of  unbroken  divisions  of 
troops  or  by  detached  soldiers,  so-called  marauders, 
or  by  the  "  hyenas  of  the  battlefield."  To  permit 
such  transgressions  only  leads,  as  experience  shows, 
to  bad  discipline  and  the  demoralization  of  the 
Army.6 

5  Napoleon,  who  actually  permitted  his  soldiers  to  plunder 
in  numerous  cases  and  in  others,  at  least,  did  not  do  his  best 
to  prevent  it,  spoke  of  it  at  St.  Helena :  "  Policy  and  morality 
are  in  complete  agreement  in  their  opposition  to  pillage.  I 
have  meditated  a  good  deal  on  this  subject;  I  have  often  been 
in  a  position  to  gratify  my  soldiers  thereby;  I  would  have 
done  it  if  I  had  found  it  advantageous.  But  nothing  is  more 


Booty  and  Plundering  173 

In  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  plundering  and  tak- 
ing of  booty  were  on  the  German  side  sternly  for- 
bidden. The  Articles  of  War  in  question  were  re- 
peatedly recalled  to  every  soldier  just  as  in  time  of 
peace,  also  numerous  orders  of  the  day  were  issued 
on  the  part  of  the  higher  authorities.  Transgres- 
sions were  ruthlessly  punished,  in  some  cases  even 
after  the  War. 

calculated  to  disorganize  and  completely  ruin  an  army.  From 
the  moment  he  is  allowed  to  pillage,  a  soldier's  discipline  is 
gone." 


CHAPTER  IV 

REQUISITIONS    AND    WAB    LEVIES 

Requisitions.  BY  requisitions  is  to  be  understood  the  compulsory 
appropriation  of  certain  objects  necessary  for  the 
army  which  is  waging  war.  What  things  belong  to 
this  category  is  quite  undetermined.  They  were 
primarily  the  means  to  feed  man  and  beast,  next  to 
clothe  and  equip  the  members  of  the  army,  i.e.,  to 
substitute  clothing  and  equipment  for  that  which  has 
worn  out  or  become  insufficient  in  view  of  the  altered 
circumstances  and  also  to  supplement  it;  further- 
more, there  will  be  such  objects  as  serve  for  the  trans- 
port of  necessaries,  and  finally  all  objects  may  be  de- 
manded which  serve  to  supply  a  temporary  necessity, 
such  as  material  and  tools  for  the  building  of  fortifi- 
cations, bridges,  railways  and  the  like.  That  requi- 
sitions of  this  kind  are  unconditionally  necessary 
and  indispensable  for  the  existence  of  the  army,  no 
one  has  yet  denied ;  and  whether  one  bases  it  legally 
upon  necessity  or  merely  upon  the  might  of  the 
stronger  is  a  matter  of  indifference  as  far  as  the  prac- 
tise is  concerned. 

174 


Requisitions  and  War  Levies  175 

The  right  generally  recognized  by  the  law  of  na-  HOW  the 

•  /•          i  ...          .  i   M  i       i*     i       T\  i      docile  Ger- 

tions  oi  to-day  to  requisition  is  a  child  01  the  Jj  rench  man  icamt 

the  "  better 

Kevolution  and  its  wars.  It  is  known  that  as  late  as  |  w»y-" 
in  the  year  1806,  Prussian  battalions  camped  close 
to  big  stacks  of  corn  and  bivouacked  on  potato  fields 
without  daring  to  appease  their  hunger  with  the  prop- 
erty of  the  stranger;  the  behavior  of  the  French 
soon  taught  them  a  better  way.  Every  one  knows  the 
ruthless  fashion  in  which  the  army  of  the  French 
Republic  and  of  Napoleon  satisfied  their  wants,  but 
of  late  opinion  laying  stress  upon  the  protection  of 
private  property  has  asserted,  itself.  Since  a  prohi- 
bition of  requisitions  would,  considering  what  war  is, 
have  no  prospect  of  acceptance  under  the  law  of  na- 
tions, the  demand  has  been  put  forward  that  the 
objects  supplied  should  at  least  be  paid  for.  This 
idea  has  indeed  up  till  now  not  become  a  principle 
of  war,  the  right  of  requisitioning  without  payment 
exists  as  much  as  ever  and  will  certainly  be  claimed 
in  the  future  by  the  armies  in  the  field,  and  also, 
considering  the  size  of  modern  armies,  must  be 
claimed;  but  it  has  at  least  become  the  custom  to 
requisition  with  as  much  forbearance  as  possible,  and 
to  furnish  a  receipt  for  what  ia  taken,  the  discharge 
of  which  is  then  determined  on  the  conclusion  of 
peace. 

To  exhaust 

In  order  to  avoid  overdoing  it,  a8  may  easily  hap-  Jg  deC°io°aifie 
pen  in  the  case  of  requisitions,  it  is  often  arranged  tod<Tiet.mean 


(A 


176       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

that  requisitions  may  never  be  demanded  by  sub- 
ordinates but  only  by  the  higher  officers,  and  that 
the  local  civil  authorities  shall  be  employed  for  the 
purpose.  It  cannot,  however,  be  denied  that  this  is 
not  always  possible  in  war;  that  on  the  contrary  the 
leader  of  a  small  detachment  and  in  some  circum- 
stances even  a  man  by  himself  may  be  under  the  ne- 
cessity to  requisition  what  is  indispensable  to  him. 
Article  40  of  the  Declaration  of  Brussels  requires 
that  the  requisitions  (being  written  out)  shall  bear 
a  direct  relation  to  the  capacity  and  resources  of 
a  country,  and,  indeed,  the  justification  for  this  con- 
ditipn .jwjould _be  willingly  recogQized^  by_every jonejn 
theory,  but  it  will  scarcely  ever  be  observed  in  prac- 
tise. In  cases  of  necessity  the  needs  of  the  army  will 
alone  decide,  and  a  man  does  well  generally  to  make 
himself  familiar  with  the  reflection  that,  in  the  chang- 
ing and  stormy  course  of  a  war,  observance  of  the 
orderly  conduct  of  peaceful  times  is,  with  the  best 
will,  impossible. 

In  the  Franco-Prussian  War  of  1870  much  was 
requisitioned  on  the  German  side.  According  to  the 
opinion  of  all  impartial  writers  it  was  done  with  mod- 
eration and  the  utmost  tenderness  for  the  inhabit- 
ants, even  if  in  isolated  cases  excesses  occurred.  Re- 
ceipts were  always  furnished.  Later,  in  the  case  of 
the  army  on  the  Meuse,  as  early  as  the  middle  of 
October  requisitions  were,  wherever  it  was  possible, 


Requisitions  and  War  Levies  177 

entirely  left  out  of  account  and  everything  was  paid 
for  in  cash.  Later  proceedings  were  frequently  and 
indeed  studiously  conducted  with  a  precise  estimate 
of  the  value  in  thalers  or  francs.1  "  Moreover,  mili- 
tary history  knows  of  no  campaign  in  which  the  victu- 
aling of  an  army  at  such  a  distance  from  home  was 
so  largely  conducted  with  its  own  stores."  2 

By  war  levies  or  contributions  is  to  be  understood 
the  raising  of  larger  or  smaller  sums  of  money  from 
the  parishes  of  the  occupied  territory.  They  are  thus 
to  be  distinguished  from  requisitions  since  they  do  not 
serve  for  the  satisfaction  of  a  momentary  want  of  the 
army  and  consequently  can  only  in  the  rarest  cases 
be  based  upon  the  necessity  of  war.  These  levies 
originated  as  so-called  "  Brandschatzungen,"  i.e.,  as 
a  ransom  from  plundering  and  devastation,  and  thus 
constituted,  compared  with  the  earlier  looting  sys- 
tem, a  step  in  the  humanizing  of  war.  Since  the 
law  of  nations  to-day  no  longer  recognizes  any  right 
to  plundering  and  devastation,  and  inasmuch  as  the 
principle  that  war  is  conducted  only  against  States, 
and  not  against  private  persons,  is  uncontested,  it 
follows  logically  that  levies  which  can  be  character- 
ized as  simply  booty-making  or  plundering,  that  is  to 
say,  as  arbitrary  enrichment  of  the  conquerors,  are 
not  permitted  by  modern  opinion.  The  conqueror  is, 

i  Dahn,  Jahrbuch  f.  A.u.M.,  Ill,  1876.     Jacquemyns  Revue. 
zDahn,  ibid.,  Ill,  1871. 


178       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

in  particular,  not  justified  in  recouping  himself  for 
the  cost  of  the  war  by  inroads  upon  the  property  of 
private  persons,  even  though  the  war  was  forced  upon 
him. 

War  levies  are  therefore  only  allowed  : 

1.  As  a  substitute  for  taxes. 

2.  As  a  substitute  for  the  supplies  to  be  furnished  as 

requisitions  by  the  population. 
•^3.  As  punishments. 

As  to  1  :  This  rests  upon  the  right  of  the  power 
in  occupation  to  raise  and  utilize  taxes. 

As  to  2  :  In  cases  where  the  provision  of  pre- 
scribed objects  in  a  particular  district  is  impossible, 
and  in  consequence  the  deficiency  has  to  be  met  by 
purchase  in  a  neighboring  district. 

As  to  3  :  War  levies  as  a  means  of  punishing  in- 
dividuals or  whole  parishes  were  very  frequently  em- 
ployed in  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  If  French 
writers  accuse  the  German  staff  of  excessive  severity 
in  this  respect,  on  the  other  hand  it  is  to  be  re- 
marked that  the  embittered  character  which  the  war 
took  on  in  its  latest  stage,  and  the  lively  participation 
of  the  population  therein,  necessitated  the  sternest 
measures.  But  a  money  tax,  judging  by  experience, 
operates,  in  most  cases,  on  the  civil  population.  The 
total  sum  of  all  the  money  contributions  raised  in 
the  War  of  1870  may  be  called  a  minimum  compared 
with  the  sums  which  Napoleon  was  accustomed  to 


&*• 


5 


Requisitions  and  War  Levies  179 

draw  from  the  territories  occupied  by  him.  Accord- 
ing to  official  estimates,  havoc  amounting  to  about  six 
milliards  of  francs  was  visited  upon  the  four  million 
inhabitants  of  Prussia  in  the  years  1807-13. 

In  regard  to  the  raising  of  war  levies  it  should  be 
noted  that  they  should  only  be  decreed  by  superior 
officers  and,  only  raised  with  the  cooperation  of  the 
local  authorities.  Obviously  an  acknowledgment  of 
every  sum  raised  is  to  be  furnished. 

1.  In  the  military  laws  of  different  countries  the  right 

of  levying  contributions  is  exclusively  reserved 
to  the  Commander-in-Chief. 

2.  The  usual  method  of  raising  taxes  would,  in  con- 

sequence of  their  slowness,  not  be  in  harmony 
with  the  demands  of  the  War ;  usually,  therefore, 
the  Civil  Authorities  provide  themselves  with  the 
necessary  money  by  a  loan,  the  repayment  of 
which  is  provided  for  later  by  law. 


CHAPTER  V 

ADMINISTRATION    OF    OCCUPIED    TEERITOBY 

HOW  to  ACCORDING  to  earlier  views  right  up  to  the  last  cen- 

adm mister  «         '  • 

ah  leaded      tury,   a  Government  whose  army  had  victoriously 

Country. 

forced  itself  into  the  territory  of  a  foreign  State 
could  do  exactly  as  it  pleased  in  the  part  occupied. 
]STo  regard  was  to  be  paid  to  the  constitution,  laws, 
and  rights  of  the  inhabitants.  Modern  times  have 
now  introduced,  in  this  respect,  a  change  in  the  domi- 
nant conceptions,  and  have  established  a  certain  legal 
relationship  between  the  inhabitants  and  the  army  of 
occupation.  If,  in  the  following  pages,  we  develop 
briefly  the  principles  which  are  applied  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  territory  iii  occupation,  it  must  none  the 
less  be  clearly  emphasized  that  the  necessities  of  war 
not  only  allow  a  deviation  from  these  principles  in 
many  cases  but  in  some  circumstances  make  it  a 
positive  duty  of  the  Commander. 

The  occupation  of  a  portion  of  the  enemy's  terri- 
tory does  not  amount  to  an  annexation  of  it.  The 
right  of  the  original  State  authority  consequently  re- 
mains in  existence;  it  is  only  suspended  when  it 

comes  into  collision  with  the  stronger  power  of  the 

180 


Administration  of  Occupied  Territory         181 

conqueror  during  the  term  of  the  occupation,  i.e., 
only  for  the  time  being.1 

But  the  administration  of  a  country  itself  cannot 
be  interrupted  by  war ;  it  is  therefore  in  the  interest 
of  the  country  and  its  inhabitants  themselves,  if  the 
conqueror  takes  it  in  hand,  to  let  it  be  carried  on 
either  with  the  help  of  the  old,  or,  if  this  is  not 
feasible,  through  the  substitution  of  the  new,  author- 
ities. 

From  this  fundamental  conception  now  arises  a 
series  of  rights  and  duties  of  the  conqueror  on  the 
one  side  and  of  the  inhabitants  on  the  other. 

Since  the  conqueror  is  only  the  substitute  for  the  The  Laws 
real  Government,  he  will  have  to  establish  the  con-  withquaii- 

...  .          flcation. 

tinuation  of  the  administration  of  the  country  with 
the  help  of  the  existing  laws  and  regulations.  The 
issue  of  new  laws,  the  abolition  or  alteration  of  old 
ones,  and  the  like,  are  to  be  avoided  if  they  are  not 
excused  by  imperative  requirements  of  war ;  only  the 
latter  permit  legislation  which  exceeds  the  need  of 
a  provisional  administration.  The  French  Republic, 
at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  frequently  abol- 
ished the  preexisting  constitution  in  the  States  con- 

iThe  King  of  Denmark  in  1715,  whilst  Charles  XII,  after 
the  Battle  of  Pultawa,  stayed  for  years  in  Bender,  sold  the 
conquered  principalities  of  Bremen  and  Verden  to  the  King 
of  England,  Elector  of  Hanover,  before  England  had  yet 
declared  war  on  Sweden.  This  undoubtedly  unlawful  act  of 
England  first  received  formal  recognition  in  the  Peace  of  Stock- 
holm, 1720. 


182       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 


quered  by  it,  and  substituted  a  Republican  one,  but 
this  is  none  the  less  contrary  to  the  law  of  nations 
to-day.  On  the  other  hand,  a  restriction  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  Press,  of  the  right  of  association,  and  of 
public  meeting,  the  suspension  of  the  right  of  election 
to  the  Parliament  and  the  like,  are  in  some  circum- 
stances a  natural  and  unavoidable  consequence  of  the 
state  of  war. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  occupied  territory  owe  the 
same  obedience  to  the  organs  of  Government  and  ad- 
ministration of  the  conqueror  as  they  owed  before 
the  occupation  to  their  own.  An  act  of  disobedience 
cannot  be  excused  by  reference  to  the  laws  or  com- 
mands of  one's  own  Government  ;  even  so  an  attempt 
to  remain  associated  with  the  old  Government  or  to 
act  in  agreement  with  it  is  punishable.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  provisional  Government  can  demand  noth- 
ing which  can  be  construed  as  an  offense  against  one's 
own  Fatherland  or  as  a  direct  or 
tion  in  the  war/ 


The  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction  continues  in 
force  as  before.  The  introduction  of  an  extraor- 
dinary administration  of  justice  —  martial  law  and 
courts-martial  —  is  therefore  only  to  take  place  if 
the  behavior  of  the  inhabitants  makes  it  necessary. 
The  latter  are,  in  this  respect,  to  be  cautioned,  and 
any  such  introduction  is  to  be  made  known  by  appro- 
priate means.  The  courts-martial  must  base  any 


f.  V^vU^> 


Administration  of  Occupied  Territory         183 

sentence  on  the  fundamental  laws  of  justice,  after 
they  have  first  impartially  examined,  however  sum- 
marily, the  facts  and  have  allowed  the  accused  a  free 
defense. 

The  conqueror  can,  as  administrator  of  the  coun- 
try and  its  Government,  depose  or  appoint  officials. 
He  can  put  on  their  oath  the  civil  servants,  who  con- 
tinue to  act,  as  regards  the  scrupulous  discharge  of 
their  duties.  But  to  compel  officials  to  continue  in 
office  against  their  will  does  not  appear  to  be  in  the 
interest  of  the  army  of  occupation.  Transgressions 
by  officials  are  punished  by  the  laws  of  their  country, 
but  an  abuse  of  their  position  to  the  prejudice  of  the 
army  of  occupation  will  be  punished  by  martial  law. 

Also  judicial  officers  can  be  deposed  if  they  permit 
themselves  to  oppose  publicly  the  instructions  of  the 
provisional  Government.  Thus  it  would  not  have 
been  possible,  if  the  occupation  of  Lorraine  in  the 
year  1870-71  had  been  protracted,  to  avoid  deposing 
the  whole  bench  of  Judges  at  Nancy  and  substi- 
tuting German  Judges,  since  they  could  not  agree 
with  the  German  demands  in  regard  to  the  promulga- 
tion of  sentence.2 

2  The  German  administration  desired  that,  as  hitherto,  jus- 
tice should  be  administered  in  the  name  of  the  Emperor  (Na- 
poleon III).  The  Court,  on  the  contrary,  desired,  after  the 
revolution  of  September  4th,  1870,  to  use  the  formula:  "In 
the  name  of  the  French  Republic."  The  Court  no  longer  recog- 
nized the  Emperor  as  Sovereign,  the  German  authorities  did 
not  yet  recognize  the  Republic.  Finally  the  Court,  unfor- 


184       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

Fiscal  POI-  The  financial  administration  of  the  occupied  terri- 

tory passes  into  the  hands  of  the  conqueror.  The 
taxes  are  raised  in  the  preexisting  fashion.  Any  in- 
crease in  them  due  to  the  war  is  enforced  in  the  form 
of  "  War  levies."  Out  of  the  revenue  of  the  taxes 
the  costs  of  the  administration  are  to  be  defrayed,  as, 
generally  speaking,  the  foundations  of  the  State  prop- 
erty are  to  be  kept  undisturbed.  Thus  the  domains, 
forests,  woodlands,  public  buildings  and  the  like,  al- 
though utilized,  leased,  or  let  out,  are  not  to  be  sold 
or  rendered  valueless  by  predatory  management.  On 
the  other  hand  it  is  permitted  to  apply  all  surplus 
from  the  revenues  of  administration  to  the  use  of  the 
conqueror. 

The  same  thing  holds  good  of  railways,  telegraphs, 
telephones,  canals,  steamships,  submarine  cables  and 
similar  things;  the  conqueror  has  the  right  of  se- 
questration, of  use  and  of  appropriation  of  any  re- 
ceipts, as  against  which  it  is  incumbent  upon  him  to 
keep  them  in  good  repair. 

If  these  establishments  belong  to  private  persons, 
then  he  has  indeed  the  right  to  use  them  to  the  fullest 
extent;  on  the  other  hand  he  has  not  the  right  to 
sequestrate  the  receipts.  As  regards  the  right  of  an- 
nexing the  rolling-stock  of  the  railways,  the  opinions 

tunately  for  the  inhabitants,  ceased  its  activities.  The  proper 
solution  would  have  been,  according  to  Bluntschli  ( 547 ) ,  either 
the  use  of  a  neutral  formula,  as,  for  example,  "  In  the  name  of 
the  law,"  or  the  complete  omission  of  the  superfluous  formula. 


Administration  of  Occupied  Territory         185 

of  authoritative  teachers  of  the  law  of  nations  differ 
from  one  another.  Whilst  one  section  regard  all 
rolling-stock  as  one  of  the  most  important  war  re- 
sources of  the  enemy's  State,  and  in  consequence 
claim  for  the  conqueror  the  right  of  unlimited  se- 
questration, even  if  the  railways  belonged  to  private 
persons  or  private  companies,3  on  the  other  hand  the 
other  section  incline  to  a  milder  interpretation  of 
the  question,  in  that  they  start  from  the  view  that 
the  rolling-stock  forms,  along  with  the  immovable 
material  of  the  railways,  an  inseparable  whole,  and 
that  one  without  the  other  is  worthless  and  is  there- 
fore subject  to  the  same  laws  as  to  appropriation.4 
The  latter  view  in  the  year  1871  found  practical  rec- 
ognition in  so  far  as  the  rolling-stock  captured  in 
large  quantities  by  the  Germans  on  the  French  rail- 
ways was  restored  at  the  end  of  the  war ;  a  correspond- 
ing regulation  was  also  adopted  by  the  Hague  Con- 
ference in  1899. 

These  are  the  chief  principles  for  the  administra-  occupation 

,.  f  .     i  ,.,..,       must  be  real 

tion  oi  an  occupied  country  or  any  portion  01  it.  not  fictitious. 
From  them  emerges  quite  clearly  on  the  one  hand 
the  duties  of  the  population,  but  also  on  the  other 
the  limits  of  the  power  of  the  conqueror.  But  the 
enforcement  of  all  these  laws  presupposes  the  actual 
occupation  of  the  enemy's  territory  and  the  possi- 

3  Stein,  Revue  17,  Declaration  of  Brussels,  Article  6. 
<  Manuel  51;  Moynier,  Revue,  XIX,  165. 


186       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

bility  of  really  carrying  them  out.5  So-called  "  fic- 
titious occupation,"  such  as  frequently  occurred  in 
the  eighteenth  century  and  only  existed  in  a  declara- 
tion of  the  claimant,  without  the  country  concerned 
being  actually  occupied,  are  no  longer  recognized  by 
influential  authorities  on  the  law  of  nations  as  valid. 
If  the  conqueror  is  compelled  by  the  vicissitudes  of 
war  to  quit  an  occupied  territory,  or  if  it  is  volun- 
tarily given  up  by  him,  then  his  military  sovereignty 
immediately  ceases  and  the  old  State  authority  of 
itself  again  steps  into  its  rights  and  duties. 

5  Article  42  of  the  Hague  Regulations  runs :  "  Territory  is 
considered  to  be  occupied  when  it  is  placed  as  a  matter  of  fact 
under  the  authority  of  the  hostile  army.  The  occupation  ex- 
tends only  to  territories  where  that  authority  is  established 
and  capable  of  being  exercised." 


PAET  III 

USAGES   OF    WAK    AS    EEGARDS    NETJTEAL    STATES 

BY  the  neutrality  of  a  State  is  to  be  understood  non-  what  ne 

trality 

participation  in  the  war  by  third  parties;  the  duly  means. 
attested  intention  not  to  participate  in  the  conduct  of 
the  war  either  in  favor  of,  or  to  the  prejudice  of, 
either  one  of  the  two  belligerents.  This  relationship 
gives  rise  in  the  case  of  the  neutral  State  to  certain 
rights  but  also  to  fixed  duties.  These  are  not  laid 
down  by  international  regulations  or  international 
treaties;  we  have  therefore  here  also  to  do  with 
"  Usages  of  War." 


is  principally  required  of  a  neutral  State  is  A  neutral 
equal  treatment  of  both  belligerentsT)  If,  therefore,  things  toeau 
the  neutral  State  could  support  the  belligerents  at  all.  fore  'he  must 

7    be  nothing  to 

it  would  have  to  give  its  support  in  equal  measure  to  any  °f  tnen»- 
both  parties.     As  this  is  quite  impossible  and  as  one 
of  the  two  parties  —  and  probably  every  one  of  them 
-  would  regard  itself  as  injured  in  any  case,  it 
therefore  follows  as  a  practical  and  empirical  princi- 
ple "  not  to  support  the  two   [i.e.,  either  or  both]    ' 
belligerents  is  the  fundamental  condition  of  neu- 
trality." 

187 


188       The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 
But  there  But  this  principle  would  scarcely  be  maintained  in 

are  limits  to       .  .  ,  .  . 

this  detach-     its  entirety,  because  in  that  case  the  trade  and  inter- 
ment. 

course  of  the  neutral  State  would  in  some  circum- 
stances be  more  injured  than  that  of  the  belligerents 
themselves. /But  no  State  can  be  compelled  to  act 
against  its  own  vital  interests,  therefore  it  is  neces- 
sary to  limit  the  above  principle  as  follows :  "  No 
neutral  State  can  support  the  belligerents  as  far  as 
military  operations  are  concerned.  This  principle 
sounds  very  simple  and  lucid,  its  content  is,  how- 
ever, when  closely  considered  very  ambiguous  and  in 
consequence  the  danger  of  dissensions  between  neu- 
tral and  belligerent  States  is  very  obviousTp 

In  the  following  pages  the  chief  duties  of  neutral 
States  are  to  be  briefly  developed.  It__is....b,ere- as- 
sumed that  neutrality  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  synon- 
ymous with  indifference  and  impartiality  towards 
the  belligerents  and  the  continuance  of  the  war.  ,As 
regards  the  expression  of  partizanship1  all  that  is  re- 
quired of  neutral  States  is  the  observance  of  inter- 
national courtesies;  so  long  as  these  are  observed 
no  occasion,  for.  interference. 


Duti 


of  the         The  chief  duties  of  neutral   States  are  to  be  re- 


tieuttal. 

gardedas^ 


Belligerents  f  1  JThe  territory  of  neutral  States  is  available  for  none 
of  the  belligerents  for  the  conduct  of  its  military 
operations.1  The  Government  of  the  neutral 

i  The  passage  of  French  troops  through  Prussian  territory  in 
October,  1805,  was  a  contempt  of  Prussian  neutrality. —  The 


Usages  of  War  as  Regards  Neutral  States      189 

State  has  therefore,  once  War  is  declared,  to  x  -  A 
prevent  the  subjects  of  both  parties  from  march- 
ing through  it;  it  has  likewise  to  prevent  the 
Faying  out  of  factories  and  workshops  for  the 
manufacture  of  War  requisites  for  one  or 
other  of  the  parties.  Also  the  organization  of 
troops  and  the  assembling  of  "  Freelances  "  on 
the  territory  of  neutral  States  is  not  allowed  by 
the  law  of  nations.2 

2.  If  the  frontiers  of  the  neutral  State  march  with  The  neutral 
those  of  the  territory  where  the  War  is  being  its  inviolable 
waged,  its  Government  must  take  care  to  occupy  must  intern 
its  own  frontiers  in  sufficient  strength  to  pre- 

moment  the  Swiss  Government  permitted  the  Allies  to  march 
through  its  territory  in  the  year  1814,  it  thereby  renounced 
the  rights  of  a  neutral  State. —  In  the  Franco-Prussian  War 
the  Prussian  Government  complained  of  the  behavior  of  Luxem- 
burg in  not  stopping  a  passage  en  masse  of  fugitive  French 
soldiers  after  the  fall  of  Metz  through  the  territory  of  the 
Grand  Duchy. 

2  The  considerable  reenforcement  of  the  Servian  Army  in  the 
year  1876  by  Russian  Freelances  was  an  open  violation  of 
neutrality,  the  more  so  as  the  Government  gave  the  officers 
permission,  as  the  Emperor  himself  confessed  later  to  the  Eng- 
lish Ambassador  in  Livadia.  The  English  Foreign  Enlistment 
Act  of  1870,  Art.  4,*  forbids  all  English  subjects  during  a  war 
in  which  England  remains  neutral,  to  enter  the  army  or  the 
navy  of  a  belligerent  State,  or  the  enlistment  for  the  purpose, 
without  the  express  permission  of  the  Government.  Similarly 
the  American  law  of  1818.  The  United  States  complained 
energetically  during  the  Crimean  War  of  English  recruiting 
on  their  territory. 

*  [This  Act  applies  to  British  subjects  wherever  they  may 
be,  and  it  also  applies  to  aliens,  but  only  if  they  enlisted  or 
promoted  enlistment  on  British  territory.  For  a  full  discus- 
sion of  the  scope  of  the  Act  see  R.  v.  Jameson  (1896),  2  Q.B. 
425.— J.  H.  M.] 


190       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

vent  any  portions  of  the  belligerent  Armies  step- 
ping across  it  with  the  object  of  marching 
through  or  of  recovering  after  a  Battle,  or  of 

lArils}/jJ^A«~  J       **  •,,_-,  ,  -ITT  j-    •,  -r, 

withdrawing  from  War  captivity.  Every  mem- 
ber of  the  belligerent  Army  who  trespasses  upon 
the  territory  of  the  neutral  State  is  to  be  dis- 
armed and  to  be  put  out  of  action  till  the  end  of 
the  War.  If  whole  detachments  step  across,  they 
must  likewise  be  dealt  with.  They  are,  indeed, 
not  prisoners  of  War,  but,  nevertheless,  are  to  be 
prevented  from  returning  to  the  seat  of  War.  A 
discharge  before  the  end  of  the  War  would  pre- 
suppose a  particular  arrangement  of  all  parties 
concerned. 

If  a  convention  to  cross  over  is  concluded, 
then,  according  to  the  prevalent  usages  of  War, 
a  copy  of  the  conditions  is  to  be  sent  to  the  Vic- 
tor.3 If  the  troops  passing  through  are  taking 
with  them  prisoners  of  War,  then  these  are  to 
be  treated  in  like  fashion.  Obviously,  the  neu- 
tral State  can  later  demand  compensation  for  the 
maintenance  and  care  of  the  troops  who  have 
crossed  over,  or  it  can  keep  back  War  material 
as  a  provisional  payment.  Material  which  is 
liable  to  be  spoilt,  or  the  keeping  of  which  would 
be  disproportionately  costly,  as,  for  example,  a 
considerable  number  of  horses,  can  be  sold,  and 

s  At  the  end  of  August,  1870,  some  French  detachments,  with- 
out its  being  known,  marched  through  Belgian  territory; 
others  in  large  numbers  fled  after  the  Battle  at  Sedan  to 
Belgium,  and  were  there  disarmed.  In  February,  1871,  the 
hard-pressed  Trench  Army  of  the  East  crossed  into  Switzer- 
land and  were  there  likewise  disarmed. 


Usages  of  War  as  Regards  Neutral  States      191 

the  net  proceeds  set  off  against  the  cost  of  in- 
ternment. 

3.  A  neutral  State  can  support  no  belligerent  by  fur-  unneutrai 
nishing  military  resources  of  any  kind  whatso- 


ever, and  is  bound  to  prevent  as  much  as  possi- 

ble  the  furnishing  of  such  wholesale  on  the  part   ^ 

of  its  subjects.     The  ambiguity  of  the  notion 

"  Kriegs  mittel  "  has  often  led  to  complications. 

The  most  indispensable  means  for  the  conduct  The  ••  sin- 

f        ATT  T-I        11  •  -i    •      ewsof  war 

of  a  War  is  money.  For  this  very  reason  it  is  —loans  to 
difficult  to  prevent  altogether  the  support  of  one 
or  other  party  by  citizens  of  neutral  States,  since 
there  will  always  be  Bankers  who,  in  the  interest 
of  the  State  in  whose  success  they  put  confidence, 
and  whose  solvency  in  the  case  of  a  defeat  they 
do  not  doubt,  will  promote  a  loan.  Against  this 
nothing  can  be  said  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  law  of  nations;  rather  the  Government  of  a 
country  cannot  be  made  responsible  for  the  ac- 
tions of  individual  citizens,  it  could  only  accept 
responsibility  if  business  of  this  kind  was  done 
by  Banks  immediately  under  the  control  of  the 
State  or  on  public  Stock  Exchanges. 

It  is  otherwise  with  the  supply  of  contraband  contraband 
of  war,  that  is  to  say,  such  things  as  are  sup- 
plied to  a  belligerent  for  the  immediate  support 
of  war  as  being  warlike  resources  and  equipment. 
These  may  include  : 

(a)  Weapons  of  war  (guns,  rifles,  sabers,  etc., 

ammunition,  powder  and  other  explosives, 

and  military  conveyances,  etc.). 
(6)   Any  materials  out  of  which  this  kind  of 

war  supplies  can  be  manufactured,  such  as 


Good 
business. 


Foodstuffs. 


192       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

saltpeter,  sulphur,  coal,  leather,  and  the 
like 

(c)  Horses  and  mules. 

(d)  Clothing  and  equipment    (such  as  uni- 
forms of  all  kinds,  cooking  utensils,  leather 
straps,  and  footwear). 

(e)  Machines,  motor-cars,  bicycles,  telegraphic 
apparatus,  and  the  like. 

All  these  things  are  indispensable  for  the  con- 
duct of  war,  their  supply  in  great  quantities 
means  a  proportionately  direct  support,  of  the 
belligerent.     On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be 
left  out  of  account  that  many  of  the  above-men- 
tioned objects  also  pertain  to  the  peaceable  needs 
of  men,  i.e.,  to  the  means  without  which  the 
practise  of  any  industry  would  be  impossible, 
and  the  feeding  of  great  masses  of  the  popula- 
tion   doubtful.     The    majority    of    European 
States  are,  even  in  time  of  peace,  dependent  on 
the  importation  from  other  countries  of  horses, 
machines,  coal,  and  the  like,  even  as  they  are 
upon  that  of  corn,  preserved  foods,  store  cattle, 
and  other  necessaries  of  life.     The  supply  of 
such  articles  by  subjects  of  a  neutral  State  may, 
therefore,  be  just  as  much  an  untainted  business 
j,  transaction  and  pacific,  as  a  support  of  a  belliger- 
.^flent.     The  question  whether  the  case  amounts  to 
I  the  one  or  the  other  is  therefore  to  be  judged 
jeach  time  upon  its  merits.     In  practise,  the  fol- 
llowing  conceptions  have  developed  themselves  in 
the  course  of  time: 

(a)  The  purchase  of  necessaries  of  life,  store 
cattle,  preserved  foods,  etc.,  in  the  terri- 


Usages  of  War  as  Regards  Neutral  States      193 

tory  of  a  neutral,  even  if  it  is  meant,  as  a 
matter  of  common  knowledge,  for  the  re- 
victualing  of  the  Army,  is  not  counted  a 
violation  of  neutrality,  provided  only  that 
such  purchases  are  equally  open  to  both 
parties. 

(6)  The  supply  of  contraband  of  war,  in  small  contraband 
quantities,  on  the  part  of  subjects  of  a  scai«?ma 
neutral  State  to  one  of  the  belligerents  is, 
so  far  as  it  bears  the  character  of  a  peace- 
able business  transaction  and  not  that  of 
an  intentional  aid  to  the  war,  not  a  viola- 
tion of  neutrality.  No  Government  can  be 
expected  to  prevent  it  in  isolated  and  trivial 
cases,  since  it  would  impose  on  the  States 
concerned  quite  disproportionate  exer- 
tions, and  on  their  citizens  countless  sacri- 
fices of  money  and  time.  He  who  supplies 
a  belligerent  with  contraband  does  so  on 
his  own  account  and  at  his  own  peril,  and 
exposes  himself  to  the  risk  of  Prize.4 

*In  the  negotiations  in  1793,  as  to  the  neutrality  of  North 
America  in  the  Anglo-French  War,  Jefferson  declared:  "The 
right  of  the  citizens  to  fashion,  sell,  and  export  arms  cannot 
be  suspended  by  a  foreign  war,  but  American  citizens  pursue 
it  on  their  own  account  and  at  their  own  risk." —  Bluntschli, 
see.  425  (2).  Similarly  in  the  famous  treaty  between  Prussia 
and  the  United  States  of  September  10th,  1785,  it  was  expressly 
fixed  in  Article  13  that  if  one  of  the  two  States  was  involved 
in  war  and  the  other  State  should  remain  neutral,  the  traders 
of  the  latter  should  not  be  prevented  from  selling  arms  and 
munitions  to  the  enemy  of  the  other.  Thus  the  contraband 
articles  were  not  to  be  confiscated,  but  the  merchants  were  to 
be  paid  the  value  of  their  goods  by  the  belligerent  who  had 
seized  them.  This  arrangement  was,  however,  not  inserted  ' 


194       The  War  Book  of  the  German  General  Staff 

And  on  a  (c)  The  supply  of  war  resources  on  a  large 

largescaie.  sc&le  stands  in  a  different  position.     Un- 

doubtedly this  presents  a  case  of  actual 
promotion  of  a  belligerent's  cause,  and  gen- 
erally of  a  warlike  succor.  If,  therefore, 
a  neutral  State  wishes  to  place  its  detach- 
ment from  the  war  beyond  doubt,  and  to 
exhibit  it  clearly,  it  must  do  its  utmost  to 
prevent  such  supplies  being  delivered. 
The  instructions  to  the  Customs  authori- 
ties must  thus  be  clearly  and  precisely  set 
out,  that  on  the  one  hand  they  notify  the 
will  of  the  Government  to  set  their  face 
against  such  wanton  bargains  with  all  their 
might,  but  that  on  the  other,  they  do  not 
arbitrarily  restrict  and  cripple  the  total 
home  trade. 

The  practise  In  accordance  with  this  view  many  neutral 

States,  such  as  Switzerland,  Belgium,  Japan,  etc., 
did,  during  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  forbid  all 
supply  or  transit  of  arms  to  a  belligerent,  whilst 
England  and  the  United  States  put  no  kind  of 
obstacles  whatsoever  in  the  way  of  the  traffic 
in  arms,  and  contented  themselves  with  drawing 
the  attention  of  their  commercial  classes  to  the 
fact  that  arms  were  contraband,  and  were  there- 
fore exposed  to  capture  on  the  part  of  the  in- 
jured belligerent.5 

in  the  newer  treaties  between  Prussia  and  the  Union  in  1799 
and  1828. 

6  In  the  exchange  of  despatches  between  England  and  Ger- 
many which  arose  out  of  the  English  deliveries  of  arms,  the 
English  Minister,  Lord  Granville,  declares,  in  reply  to  the  com- 


Usages  of  War  as  Regards  Neutral  States      195 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  views  of  this  'Jf 
particular  relation  of  nations  with  each  other 
still  need  clearing  up,  and  that  the  unanimity 
which  one  would  desire  on  this  question  does  not 
exist. 

4.  The  neutral  State  may  allow  the  passage  or  trans-  who  may 
port  of  wounded  or  sick  through  its  territory  sick  and  the 
without  thereby  violating  its  neutrality;  it  has,  Wounded- 
however,  to  watch  that  hospital  trains  do  not 
carry  with  them  either  war  personnel  or  war 
material  with  the  exception  of  that  which  is 
necessary  for  the  care  of  the  sick.6 

plaints  of  the  German  Ambassador  in  London,  Count  Bern- 
storff,  that  this  behavior  is  authorized  by  the  preexisting  prac-  ,ul*<  ^ 
lise,  but  adds  that  "  with  the  progress  of  civilization  the  obli- 
gations  of  neutrals  have  become  more  stringent,  and  declares 
his  readiness  to  consult  with  other  nations  as  to  the  possibil- 
ity of  introducing  in  concert  more  stringent  rules,  although  his 
expectations  of  a  practical  result  are,  having  regard  to  the 
declarations  of  the  North- American  Government,  not  very  hope- 
ful." President  Grant  had,  it  is  true,  already  in  the  Neutral- 
ity Proclamation  of  August  22nd,  1870,  declared  the  trade  in 
contraband  in  the  United  States  to  be  permitted,  but  had 
uttered  a  warning  that  the  export  of  the  same  over  sea  was 
forbidden  by  international  law.  He  had  later  expressly  for- 
bidden the  American  arsenal  administration  to  sell  arms  to  a 
belligerent,  an  ordinance  which  was  of  course  self-evident  and 
was  observed  even  in  England,  but  he  did  not  attempt  to 
prevent  dealers  taking  advantage  of  the  public  sale  of  arms 
out  of  the  State  arsenals  to  buy  them  for  export  to  the  French. 
6  Belgium  allowed  itself,  in  August,  1870,  owing  to  the  oppo- 
sition of  France,  to  be  talked  into  forbidding  the  transport  of 
wounded  after  the  Battle  of  Sedan,  through  Belgian  territory, 
and  out  of  excessive  caution  interpreted  its  decree  of  August 
27th  as  amounting  to  a  prohibition  of  the  transport  even  of 
individual  wounded.  The  French  protest  was  based  on  the 
contention  that  by  the  transport  of  wounded  through  Belgium, 


196 


Who  may 
not  pass  — 
Prisoners  of 
War. 


Rights  of 
the  nentral. 


5.  The  passage  or  transport  of  prisoners  of  war 
through  neutral  territory  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
not  to  be  allowed,  since  this  would  be  an  open 
favoring  of  the  belligerent  who  happened  to  be 
in  a  position  to  make  prisoners  of  war  on  a  large 
scale,  while  his  own  railways,  water  highways, 
and  other  means  of  transport  remained  free  for 
exclusively  military  purposes. 

These  are  the  most  important  duties  of  neutral 
States  so  far  as  land  warfare  is  concerned.  If  they 
are  disregarded  by  the  neutral  State  itself,  then  it 
has  to  give  satisfaction  or  compensation  to  the  bellig- 
erent who  is  prejudiced  thereby.  This  case  may 
also  occur  if  the  Government  of  the  neutral  State, 
with  the  best  intentions  to  abstain  from  proceedings 
which  violate  neutrality,  has,  through  domestic  or 
foreign  reasons,  not  the  power  to  make  its  intentions 
good.  If,  for  example,  one  of  the  two  belligerents 
by  main  force  marches  through  the  territory  of  a 
neutral  State  and  this  State  is  not  in  a  position  to 
put  an  end  to  this  violation  of  its  neutrality,  then 
the  other  belligerent  has  the  right  to  engage  the 
enemy  on  the  hitherto  neutral  territory. 

The  duties  of  neutral  States  involve  corresponding 
rights,  such  as : 

the  military  communication  of  the  enemy  with  Germany  was 
relieved  from  a  serious  hindrance.  "  On  such  a  ground " — 
thinks  Bluntschli  (p.  434) — "one  might  set  one's  face  against 
the  transport  of  large  numbers  but  not  the  transport  of  in- 
dividuals. These  considerations  of  humanity  should  decide." 


K> 


V, 


Usages  of  War  as  Regards  Neutral  States      197 

1.  The  neutral  State  has  the  right  to  be  regarded  as  Then«ntrai 

still   at   peace    with   the   belligerents    as    with  tobe^ft*114 
others.  alone- 

2.  The  belligerent  States  have  to  respect  the  inviol- 

ability of  the  neutral  and  the  undisturbed  exer-  Neutral 
cise  of  its  sovereignty  in  its  home  affairs,  to  ab-  slcred.ry  la 
stain  from  any  attack  upon  the  same,  even  if  the 
necessity  of  war  should  make  such  an  attack  de- 
sirable. Neutral  States,  therefore,  possess  also 
the  right  of  asylum  for  single  members  or  ad- 
herents of  the  belligerent  Powers,  so  far  as  no 
favor  to  one  or  other  of  them  is  thereby  implied. 
Even  the  reception  of  a  smaller  or  larger  detach- 
ment of  troops  which  is  fleeing  from  pursuit  does 
not  give  the  pursuer  the  right  to  continue  his 
pursuit  across  the  frontier  of  the  neutral  terri- 
tory. It  is  the  business  of  the  neutral  State 
to  prevent  troops  crossing  over  in  order  to  re- 
assemble in  the  chosen  asylum,  reform,  and  sally 
out  to  a  new  attack. 

3.  If  the  territory  of  a  neutral  State  is  trespassed  j  The  neutral 

upon  by  one  of  the  belligerent  parties  for  the ' n 
purpose  of  its  military  operations,  then  this 
State  has  the  right  to  proceed  against  this  viola- 
tion of  its  territory  with  all  the  means  in  its 
power  and  to  disarm  the  trespassers.  If  the 
trespass  has  been  committed  on  the  orders  of  the 
Army  Staff,  then  the  State  concerned  is  bound 
to  give  satisfaction  and  compensation;  if  it  has 
been  committed  on  their  own  responsibility,  then 
the  individual  offenders  can  be  punished  as 
criminals.  If  the  violation  of  the  neutral  terri- 
tory is  due  to  ignorance  of  its  frontiers  and  not 


its  territory 
"  with  all 
the  means 
In  Its 
power.' 


*» 
V4 


198      The  War  Boole  of  the  German  General  Staff 


Neutrality 
Is  presumed. 


The  prop- 
erty of  neu- 
trals. 


to  evil  intention,  then  the  neutral  State  can  de- 
mand the  immediate  removal  of  the  wrong,  and 
can  insist  on  necessary  measures  being  taken  to 
prevent  a  repetition  of  such  contempts. 

4.  Every  neutral  State  can,  so  long  as  it  itself  keeps 

faith,  demand  that  the  same  respect  shall  be 
paid  to  it  as  in  time  of  peace.  It  is  entitled 
to  the  presumption  that  it  will  observe  strict 
neutrality  and  will  not  make  use  of  any  declara- 
tions or  other  transactions  as  a  cloak  for  an  in- 
justice against  one  belligerent  in  favor  of  the 
other,  or  will  use  them  indifferently  for  both. 
This  is  particularly  important  in  regard  to 
Passes,  Commissions,  and  credentials  issued  by 
a  neutral  State.7 

5.  The  property  of  the  neutral  State,  as  also  that  of 

its  citizens,  is,  even  if  it  lies  within  the  seat  of 
war,  to  be  respected  so  far  as  the  necessity  of  war 
allows.  It  can  obviously  be  attacked  and  even 
destroyed  in  certain  circumstances  by  the  bel- 
ligerents, but  only  if  complete  compensation  be 
afterwards  made  to  the  injured  owners.  Thus 
—  to  make  this  clear  by  an  example  from  the 
year  1870  —  the  capture  and  sinking  of  six  Eng- 
lish colliers  at  Duclaix  was  both  justified  and 
necessary  on  military  grounds,  but  it  was,  for 
all  that,  a  violent  violation  of  English  property, 
for  which  on  the  English  side  compensation  was 
demanded,  and  on  the  German  side  was  readily 
forthcoming. 

7  Dr.  A.  W.  Heffter,  Das  Europaische  Volkerrecht  der  Gegen- 
wart  (7th  ed.),  1882,  p.  320. 


~*AAL»*      ^&^ 


rt 


Usages  of  War  as  Regards  Neutral  States      199 

6.  Neutral   States  may  continue  to  maintain  dip-  Diplomatic 
lomatic  intercourse  with  the  belligerent  Pow-  lntercourse- 
ers  undisturbed,  so  far  as  military  measures  do 
not  raise  obstacles  in  the  way  of  it. 


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